


Tales of the Society: The Azure Age Chapter 6

by LadyofI



Series: Tales of the Society [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 00:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofI/pseuds/LadyofI
Summary: After Sylvie's attack and death, the Society is on cleanup duty after the Azures wreck their base. But the Initiative has one more surprise in store...





	1. No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> So, after Chapter 5's massive renovation, I am ready to hit the floor and continue uploading 6-10. And boy is it about to be a doozy coming up.

“_And thus, Sylvie Prower died as she lived: a rabid dwarf fangirl from hell and a generally despicable little abomination.” Tsuneo scanned the crowd until his red-lensed gaze fell upon Tavo. “Some deeper part of me took serious satisfaction in the death she met at your hooves, little guy.”_

_Tavo bowed his head sheepishly, but Eli looked unimpressed. “Dude, you take some sick pride in _everyone’s_ deaths,” he retorted. “No offense, bro, but is there anyone besides us you **haven’t** wanted to die at some point?”_

_“Hey, I think we can _all_ agree that Sylvie deserved it after everything she did; dissecting Max, torturing Tsuneo, and nearly forcing Tavo to fry his own brain to stop her - to say nothing about the thousands of other people whose lives she took.” Scafe scowled at the memory of Sylvie’s crimes before looking amid the rest of the Society members. “But y’know what? I’m more involved with what came just half a week after that...”_

_“You mean the Clusterfuck Attack?” Brian questioned._

_JoJo blinked in confusion. “Clusterfuck?” he parroted. “The fuck is that?”_

_“Hoo boy…that was a crazy day… Care to tell the tale? Brian? Eli?” Max nodded to the two in question, bringing more looks of surprise and confusion among the newer members of the Society._

_“But why both of them?” Matt inquired. “Usually it’s just one of you telling what happened next.”_

_“Because the next strike from our Azure ‘friends’ came on two fronts,” Tim answered. “Eli led a team to deal with their latest attempt at sabotage; the rest of us, led by Brian, had to fend off a full attack on our base, courtesy of **Clusterfuck.**”_

_“Okay, but…the hell _is_ a ‘Clusterfuck,’ besides something really nasty?” The arctic wolf scratched her head at the unpleasant-sounding name._

_“Well, let me tell you…” Brian shook his head, remembering those older days. “Once we got back from the mountains, we found that Weiss and his merry band of assbags _had_ busted into our mansion while we were busy with Sylvie. And being assbags, they decided to leave us with a big ol’ mess…”_

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6.1: No Rest for the Wicked

“God fucking _damn,_ these Azure guys are total _jackasses!_” Emily swore as she dragged another bulging garbage bag over to an old-school PC Recycle Bin that Brian had drawn up. “I’ve seen salt, but this takes it to a whole new level - this is _advanced_ salt!”

“Clearly, Brian wasn’t kidding when he said that they’re vindictive,” Athena noted with a hint of disdain. “Defacing our headquarters with such…_juvenile_ slurs…pitiful.”

“In hindsight, we should’ve expected as much: If Sylvie’s ponies got past us here, they’ve probably had our number for a while now,” Tsuneo called back to the goat, using his Ether as an effective scraping tool to carve off the graffiti marking the walls of the living room. “It’s just a shame Brian hadn’t had the foresight to create Security Countermeasures before we took off… Or that _I_ lacked the foresight to tell him to, since it’s impossible to trust that procrastinator with anything.”

“Tsuneo, can you _not_ be a savage asshole for once and continue working?” Irene asked, using an ice scraper to get dried eggs off the ceilings. “Besides, he can’t be _that_ bad when it comes to procrastinating, can he?”

“…Did you know Brian has this comic he’s been working on since before I even arrived here?” Tsuneo sniped back, a stupid smirk under his mask. “He’s made _one_ page for it in the last _four_ years, and I’m not fucking joking.”

Before Irene could retort, a distant cry was heard, followed by a muffled explosion from the vicinity of the kitchen. A moment later, B.Nana staggered into the room, looking equal parts frazzled and frightened.

“Ohmygod, guys! You’re not gonna _believe_ this - the soup drawer had a freakin’ _bomb_ in it! I barely got it outta there in time to stop it from wrecking half our food!”

“Say _what!?_” Emily yelped. “...I thought the bombs went in the spice cupboard, not the soup drawer...”

“Missing the point, Em,” Tsuneo chided. “Well, if there was a bomb in the drawer, there’s more elsewhere. Irene, Brittany, go scour the place to find the rest; if we haven’t tripped on them until now, they’re probably hidden somewhere _really_ devious. Like under Brian’s bed with his Trixie stash for all I know.”

The words had barely left Tsuneo’s mouth when another explosion was heard a floor above him. Moments later, an ash-faced, dripping wet Brian ran down the stairs, his expression a combination of fury and horror.

“Guys, we’re gonna need to hold off on the clean-up,” he panted. “Graffiti’s the _least_ of the surprises those Azure bastards left for us - there was a fucking _bomb_ in my Grape Soda Mini-Fridge! And there’s probably more bo-”

“Already two steps ahead, Brian; go girls.” Tsuneo nodded to Brian while waving Irene and B.Nana to run off on EOD duty. The banana-woman went immediately, but Irene hung back to cross her arms over her chest.

“…_Seriously?_ In the kitchen and Brian’s room? Not somewhere where a large group are gonna be, thus killing two birds with one stone. Idiots.” She rolled her eyes, but Tsuneo shook his head.

“No, they’re smart on that front,” he replied. “More eyes means more people can notice it; putting them in obscure, structural or vital weak points in the facility is much less obvious than all in one huge room when they don’t even know when to detonate them. Sure, it’s more annoying than lethal, but one of those things could be connected to the Power Grid for all we know…”

“_And they already tried the ‘one big-ass bomb’ trick before, so they might not think it’d work again,_” Zeus added. “_Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if these ones are just meant to piss us off and buy those Azure fuckers some time to regroup after recent losses..._”

“Piss us off...?“ Brian twitched. “Well…**MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED!** No one blows up my Grape Soda mini fridge and gets away with it! Once we get rid of these bombs, we’re hitting ‘em right back, hard enough that Weiss’s entire douchey family tree feels it right in the fucking _taint!!_”

“While you’re bitching and crying about your pop, I’m gonna see what exactly to look for. See you guys in a little while.” Irene waved offhandedly while heading to the kitchen. With that done, Tsuneo set a hand on Brian’s shoulder to bring his attention back to the current issue.

“Right… Sarge, did you finish installing the new security system yet? We’d better test its working capacity before we go douche-kicking out there.”

“Oh yeah, right!” Brian snapped his fingers as he remembered his latest project. “I was just going to add the finishing touches on it after I grabbed a can of Grape Soda…_from my mini fridge_...” He twitched again before composing himself and heading back up the stairs. “C’mon, Tsuneo; I’ll show ya some of the new features. Eli’s already up there and waiting.”

“Joy...” Tsuneo snarked.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Right, what’s the new word, Sarge?” Eli regarded the pair entering the Security Office, a few stands with tech all over the room. “I heard that rattling earlier - sounds like the Blue Man Douche Group left us some packages.”

“Yeeep…we’ve got _another_ reason to get this thing up and running,” Brian replied grimly. “The Azures rigged bombs around the place; Irene and B.Nana are sussing them out as we speak.”

“Well, no time like the present to test your new toys.” Tsuneo flipped the closed circuit to avoid turning on the security elsewhere in the mansion. “Let’s see what the security looks like, Eli.”

“Alright, check it out!” Eli turned to a nearby console and typed a few commands. Moments later, a monitor flickered to life, displaying two blank boxes in front of the Crimson Society’s logo. “I finished setup on the system while I was waiting for ya; we just need a username and password, and we’re good to go~”

“No doubt you’ve already set one up then, Eli.” Brian exchanged a nod with the chinchilla as the latter entered his own information. His confidence was soon replaced by a quizzical expression as a large red exclamation mark appeared on the screen.

“…What.” The words had barely left the chinchilla’s mouth when the screen was utterly filled with exclamation marks - a moment later, a large gatling gun emerged from the opposite wall, taking aim at the Councilmen as its barrel spun up. Thinking quickly, Tsuneo seized the barrel of the gun, pointing it at the ceiling as it began to fire wildly. In turn, Eli pulled out his staff and struck the vulnerable joint under the turret head, breaking it off and ceasing the fire.

“Looks like the system still has a few bugs in it.” Tsuneo smirked at Eli, who only continued to look confused.

“Don’t gimme that, T,” he said. “I _know_ I didn’t set it to do that, especially not after _one_ failed attempt...” He turned back to the console as the screen glitched out suddenly and violently, replacing the exclamation marks with a single familiar symbol: a pixelated Zoroark skull, laughing monotonously.

“Aww hell…anyone smell a _really_ familiar rat?” Brian asked rhetorically.

“Quantum…” Eli growled. “That cheating Poké-fuck must’ve tapped our mainframe while his buddies were messing up the place!”

“Should’ve guessed as much,” Brian sighed as he walked over to the corrupted console, flipping up a panel to reveal a large red button. “Luckily, I thought ahead and rigged up a handy data-dump function - it’ll set our security back to square one, but at least it’ll…” He paused when he pushed the button, to a grand total of nothing happening. “…Okay, why is nothing happening?”

“_Uhh...Brian? I...don’t think ‘nothing’ is the right word..._” Zeus’s nervous tone drew Brian’s attention behind him, where three more turrets were sliding out of the walls amid a mass of pincer-tipped cables.

“Looks like he thought ahead too - rewired your failsafe to act as another security trigger.” Tsuneo summoned his Titan Cleaver as he spoke, planting it in the ground behind him as he nudged Brian out of the way of the console.

“Alright, that’s fine! Believe it or not, I planned for this too!” Drawing up a shield to cover himself from the turrets’ fire, Brian ran over to a small lever nestled between another pair of consoles. “Let’s see if that cyborg furball was expecting my emergency override _override_ lever!” With a flourish, he pulled the lever, immediately causing the entire room to go dark with the whine of draining power - the only light came from the open doorway. “...Uhh...that _wasn’t_ supposed to happen…”

“Trust me, dude, it’s better this way.” Eli sighed as he shut a wall panel over the breaker switch. “If I know Quantum even _half_ as well as I think I do, he’d have a backup plan for every fucking trick in the book short of pulling the plug or busting up the console…_which,_ I might add, we just fucking _finished building!_” He shot a brief glare at Tsuneo, but the potential argument was derailed when their communicators went off.

“Um, guys…we have a problem,” Irene’s voice piped up. “I found one of the bombs, and you’re _not_ gonna like where it is.”

“Let me fucking _guess…_” Tsuneo scowled behind his mask as he led the others out; he knew damn well what Irene was about to say.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“_You have _got_ to be fucking kidding,_” Zeus growled, eyeing the web-like cluster of explosives affixed to the main generator of the Society’s base.

“Afraid not, pervasite,” Irene replied as she fluttered down from above. “This nasty-looking mess of bombs is rigged with what I’ve dubbed a ‘Madagascar Circuit’; if they even _think_ that one of them’s being messed with, they _all_ prime themselves to blow, taking our power - and possibly the whole fucking HQ - with them.”

“And like the rest of these fucking things, they’re all probably rigged with motion detectors.” Eli put two fingers to his forehead in exasperation. “So we can’t even carry the generator out for Brian to draw up a new one…”

“Oh, that’s just the tip of the goddamn iceberg,” Juliet frowned. “Motion detectors so we can’t move ‘em, pressure sensors so we can’t _touch_ ‘em, digital security triggers so we can’t hack ‘em, thermal switches so Becky can’t freeze ‘em…hell, they have dead-man’s-switches so we can’t even EMP the things!” She shrugged at the few quizzical looks she received. “I dealt with a lot of terrorists when I was in White Noise; I know my bombs.”

“So we’d have to manually cut the wires to set off each payload, and judging by what I’m seeing here, they _all_ have different wire setups…to say nothing of that Madagascar Circuit setting the rest to blow the moment we even try…” Tsuneo shook his head in grudging amazement. “If I could’ve made something like _this_ back home, the Zenith Order would have been _screwed_…”

“Awww man!” B.Nana cried. “Of all the times for Tim to be stuck in bed, why _now!?_”

“Given how thorough the Initiative seems to have been, I’d wager they even figured out a way to counter having their bombs frozen in time,” Max sighed grimly.

“How much you wanna bet this is the resident stripper-goat’s work?” Scafe grumbled in turn.

“Don’t care if it’s goat-bitch or someone else; I’m gonna start trying to disarm it. Fingers crossed, everyone…” Irene knelt beside the generator, but Tsuneo put a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head again.

“Look at this mess, Irene; the damn thing’s unsalvageable… The best thing we can do is space it so at least it won’t detonate here. You have the portals; drop the fucker out there.”

Although she allowed Tsuneo to inch her back to her feet, Irene hesitated to comply. “…You _do_ realize that this is gonna leave us without power for however long it takes Brian to draw up a new generator, right?” she asked rhetorically.

“Would you rather blow this thing up on our terms, or when Weiss decides to stop fucking around and plunge us into darkness when we _really_ need it?” Eli replied as he re-entered the room, recognizing just how thoroughly they had dug themselves in. “Do it; we’ll have Brian working on that.”

“Hang on; where’d you go, Eels?” Scafe asked, not having seen or heard the chinchilla exit.

“While you were talking ’bout the bomb, I went up to the communication room to get a trace on Quantum’s signal. Luckily, he hasn’t gotten his claws into the radar, so I found some kinda outpost a ways north of our place. Maybe it’s one of Quantum’s personal script workshops, maybe a Neo Empire jamming station, maybe Amy’s private sex dungeon; fuck if I know! What I _do_ know is that thing has a wireless signal coming from it, and it’s linked to our mainframe.”

“Well, what are we waitin’ for?” Dante exclaimed. “Let’s muster the gang and go catch ourselves a particularly assholish Pokémon~!”

“Hold your horses, Dante,” Brian admonished. “Doesn’t it seem…_odd_…that Eli was able to get a lock on Quantum’s signal? I mean, the Robo-ark has hacked literally _every_ other system in the house, and he somehow _missed_ the one thing that can lead us _right to him?_”

“Yeah...I’ve been through enough stings to know a setup when I see one,” Eli nodded in agreement. “Classic lose-lose scenario; either we take the bait and walk into a trap, or we leave Quantum to make our lives hell as he does who-knows-what to our mainframe.”

“Why not divide our workforce in two?” Scafe suggested. “Without Marcell’s brainwashing music and Sylvie’s mutant horde, the Azure Initiative’s _gotta_ be hurting for numbers; we could send a squad to apprehend Quantum and break their shit, while the rest of us stay to fix the place up.”

“I can’t help but think that’s exactly what Quantum _wants_ us to do,” Athena noted. “Given their earlier attack and our still-injured peers, the Azure Initiative probably knows that we won’t be so naive as to leave our base unguarded…and with the security down, that leaves us no choice but to split up and increase our vulnerability.”

Tsuneo gave a resigned sigh at Athena’s observation. “Sadly, that’s the _only_ scenario with a chance of success,” he said. “We can’t beat Quantum at his own game; he already broke through our countermeasures to turn the base’s security on us, and I’d bet my Reaper Blade that he’ll keep screwing with our systems until we’re basically living in the world’s fanciest cave. Even if the generator blows up - either by our hands or Weiss’s - Quantum can just re-hack our systems the moment we get back online.”

“And if we _all_ go after him, we’ll be leaving this place full of bombs gods-know-where and return to nothing but a pile of rubble, and probably a full Azure Initiative ambush,” Eli finished. “Not the best state of affairs, _especially_ since Tim and Tavo aren’t in any shape to come along or fight off an attack.”

“So yeah, we seem to be pretty boned. Alright Eli, gather some of our guys and intercept that signal.” Brian nodded to the chinchilla. “The rest of us will juggle EOD, guard duty, and taking care of Tavo and Tim while I draw up a new generator.”

“Gotcha,” Eli said before scrutinizing the group around him. “Alright, lemme see here…who’s up for a stealth mission?” He seemed to be thinking aloud more than directly asking; nonetheless, a few members immediately stepped forward.

“Stealth is my specialty - assassin and all,” Max said. “Besides, I owe the Initiative a few beatings for what Sylvie did to me…”

“A huntress like me is well-suited to staying in the shadows.” Zuula clicked in anticipation of an old-school hunting scenario. “I’d love to see if cyborgs can still experience fear~”

“Yeah, count me in too, I guess,” Juliet added. “I can do infiltration…and it might help to have another tech-head around.”

“I just wanna see what this fucker’s got runnin’ up there.” Dante raised an eyebrow as his friends gave him looks of disbelief. “Hey, I know when it’s important not to blow your cover; I’ll behave, scout’s honor!”

“You damn well _better,_ Dante,” Eli warned. “Quantum’s on a whole ‘nother level from Sylvie or Marcell - all of the cheating fuckery, and _none_ of the stupidity. One false move, and it’ll be like a real-life version of _Super Smash Bros._…with _us_ as the Level 1 CPUs.”

“Gotcha, big man!” Despite the sparkle in his eye at the prospect of a challenge, Dante kept his expression serious as he nodded to Eli.

“Alright then, I think this’ll do.” The chinchilla glanced back at his other friends, who were looking between him and the bomb-laden generator. “You gonna dispose of this ticking disaster-in-the-making, Irene?”

“I wish I could study it for future events, but if you guys agree that it’s for the best to portal it out of here…” The butterfly-winged woman sighed as she opened one end of a portal under the generator. “Just tell me where you want the other end.”

“Sorry, Irene, but the last thing we need is for Weiss to have a giant time bomb hooked up to our main power grid.” Brian gave a sigh of his own as he drew up a strange key and stuck it in a slot on the side of the generator. “We’re dumping it as far away from the HQ and civilization as we can; space the damn thing.”

With a nod, Irene opened the portal for just a moment, air rushing out of it as the generator was dropped through. As the lights around the HQ shut off, the Society could hear the bombs begin to beep ominously in the instant before the portal disappeared.

“Welp…that’s that,” Max said glumly. “Thankfully, neither of our Equestrian friends were injured to the point of needing any equipment to help them recover…”

“You said it, man.” Eli gave a short nod as he began walking out of the room. “C’mon, stealth team - we better get ready to move out ASAP. It won’t take Quantum long to notice the power being cut…if he hasn’t already.”

The previously-selected members gave murmurs of acknowledgement as they followed Eli out of the room, leaving the others to exchange glances among themselves in the dark.

“Then we have our duties,” Brian said. “I’ll get to making the new generator; Tsuneo and Scafe are on guard duty; Irene, B.Nana, keep combing the base for bombs; Em, Bex, watch Tim and Tavo’s rooms.” He paused to catch each member’s eye as his own gaze hardened. “I want _all_ of you to be ready for action at a moment’s notice, because those bastards _will_ be coming for us now. It’s just a matter of _who_ and _when_…”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The halls of the Azure Initiative’s HQ rang with Weiss’s maniacal laughter as he watched the feed from the cloaked spy camera he and his allies had rigged in the Society’s HQ. “Ohh man, that is _perfect!_” he crowed. “Did you _see_ the looks on their fucking faces when they realized they had to drop their own generator?!”

“Indeed.” Purgatory’s mirthless satisfaction was audible behind her helmet as she observed the Society’s reluctant solution to the dilemma the Initiative had forced them into. “This is but a taste of the punishment they shall receive for ever allowing that _demon_ to return to the fold.”

“Hahaha…oooh, if only my brother were here right now to see how much more I’ve accomplished without his help~!” Weiss’s gloating was interrupted by the communications console hissing to life with static, clearing to reveal the shadowed visage of Quantum.

“You exaggerate our progress, Lord Weiss,” he droned. “The Society’s defenses are compromised, but they still function; if we do not capitalize our advantage-”

“Quantum…? Did you just peg me for some kind of _fool?_” Weiss raised an eyebrow and gave a soft growl at the implied criticism.

“Certainly not,” Quantum responded curtly. “I am merely debunking any unnecessary hubris we may feel; as I was about to say, we have only _injured_ the Society, not defeated them. To assume that their threat has been neutralized is-”

“Alright, alright, I _get it!_” Weiss snapped. “Jeez…I’m just tryin’ to get us psyched up for the moment when we drop the other shoe, Quantum! …And speakin’ of which…everything set on your end of things?”

“Affirmative.” With a gesture, Quantum brought up an inset on the screen, displaying a map of the surrounding area. “I have completed preparations for the inevitable strike team, and the Chimera is primed for long-distance launch; the real plan can begin at your discretion.”

“Excellent. Losing Marcell and Sylvie were just minor setbacks,” Weiss responded, folding his arms. “But it’s like my dad always said: _The more trash you dump out of the basket, the cleaner your conscience will be._”

“That is an…_odd_ metaphor, my lord,” Purgatory commented. “But I dare not question your father’s advice.”

“Good. That man fought in the army, so don’t disrespect him!” Weiss’s beaming was yet again interrupted as Quantum broke communications, with Amethyst on the line this time.

“Weissy, I’ve got a bead on the Crimson Chumps; looks like Eli’s leading a five-man band of bozos!” The cyborg goat-girl giggled as an image appeared beside her, showing the strike team in the distance. “They just passed the Mountain Range checkpoint; it’s _way_ too late for them to turn back if they get a distress call! Send in the Chimera whenever you’re ready; I’ll keep ya posted on these few victims~” Her chipper tone belied a sinister level of forethought.

“Looks like everything's falling into place~! ...About damn time, too…” Weiss shook his head before returning his attention to Amethyst. “Keep up the good work, babe. If things go according to plan, we’ll have those red-colored fuckers crying for their mothers in a matter of _seconds._”

“You got it, sweetie! I’ll be thinking of you~” Amethyst gave a lustful wink and returned to her duties. When the communication went dead, Weiss sat back on his sofa, making himself comfortable before thumbing a switch beside him.

“Well, Crimson Bitches, if this was chess, I’d say I just made one _hell_ of a move. So…what’ll _you_ fuckers do when the Chimera comes for you?”

The Azure leader grinned wickedly as he pressed the switch, causing it to flash red. A moment later, the building shook slightly from the force of something very large taking to the skies…

** **

** ** **-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-** ** **


	2. Chimeric Carnage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Concurrent with Chapter 3) The Society has split up both to deal with Quantum and do bomb-clearing duty. But the surprise the Initiative has in store for them has arrived...

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6.2A: Chimeric Carnage

_ **Last time on Tales of the Society...** _

_The Crimson Society may have beaten Sylvie, but the evil fangirl’s final words proved true; while they were out, the rest of the Azure Initiative invaded their HQ, leaving it in shambles and full of explosives. However, the Society soon discovered that they had two bigger problems; Quantum had hacked their entire mainframe, and the rest of the Initiative had rigged the base’s power core with a deviously brilliant network of bombs, effectively locking the heroes out of their own home._

_Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Society disposed of the sabotaged generator and divided their forces; Eli led a team to track down Quantum’s hideout, while the rest stayed back to clean up their HQ and brace for the Initiative’s inevitable “encore”. However, the latter group may soon wish they had gone Zoroark hunting, because the next Azure assault will come in a truly (and **literally**) monstrous fashion… _

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following the Society’s meeting in the power room, Scafe took to air recon, flying high over the treeline to maximize his field of vision; in contrast, Tsuneo opted to stand sentinel at the frontline of the base. With B.Nana and Irene scavenging the base for more bombs, Brian occupied with drawing up a new generator, and Becky and Emily protecting the wounded, everyone was tasked to capacity while the remaining Society members went hunting for the hacker Pokémon himself.

“Heugh… It’s too quiet around here with half of us gone,” Scafe noted with some concern, landing atop the mountain the base was built into. “I don’t like how this feels…_calm before the storm,_ yeah?”

“Neither do we, Scafe… But we got a lot to do in a short time too, so we’ve got plenty to keep busy with. So do you, if you can find whatever the Azures are sendin’ at us!” B.Nana answered over her communicator.

“We’re in the eye of the storm. It’s just a matter of time before the wind shifts,” Irene sighed over her communicator. “Also, these guys found some interesting places to hide bombs. And by ‘interesting’, I mean I now have even _more_ reasons to nail Weiss with all the fire and nukes in the Nexus.”

“I just hope it’s enough time to get this back online,” Brian answered back. “Seriously, do you guys have _any_ idea how hard it is to draw a new generator? So many moving parts…”

“_Come off it, Brian,_” Zeus groaned. “_You have a much better time drawing generators than you do with vehicles._

“A generator’s basically a car engine if you took it out of the damn car, y’know,” Brian snarked back at his hand as he finished another piston.

“_Just stop your bitching and get back to it…_” Zeus growled. “_The sooner we’re done, the sooner we’ll be ready for the Azures’ next swing at us…_”

“I just hope no one’s coming at all… After all, Tim and Tavo are really vulnerable right now…” Becky added, glancing back at the door she sat in front of. “No news is good news, as far as I’m concerned.”

“That’s a lot to hope for, Bex.” Scafe chided to his girlfriend, glancing further north where his friends had set off in search of Quantum’s base.

“I can hope, Scafey…” Becky sighed, looking over at her guard partner, Emily, discussing something with her own Parasite out of earshot. “Beats spending my time making ice sculptures or somethin’…”

“Least we have a handle on the situation, right?” Brian added optimistically. “Everyone’s on point; we’re doin’ well for ourselves, at least-”

“_**Dammit,** Brian!_” Zeus’s sudden shout caught his host off-guard, nearly making him drop his pencil.

“W-What?? What did I do?!”

“_Oh, I’m sorry,_” Zeus said sarcastically. “_I’m just preparing for when something goes horribly wrong when you fucking **jinx us.** You know, get ahead of the game, as they say._”

Groaning at Zeus’s sarcasm, the hybrid reached for his pencil just as the foundation above him shook. “Shit! Another one just went off, I think…”

“Yep…” Irene answered Brian’s unspoken query. “That one was in the Transporter Room…clever jerks hid it under the Warp Pad. Good news is that no one was on it at the time, and it doesn’t look like it’s _too_ badly damaged. Bad news is that we’ve lost all teleport access outside of yours truly, so…”

“I’d say the Initiative is trying to pin us down…and succeeding rather handily,” Athena commented.

“For _what_, though?” Tsuneo asked. “If they wanted to take us out, they had a good chance to set up an ambush for us after wrecking the place. Even if we expected it, they’d have the advantage of cover and high ground…“

“Smug bastards probably thought our bombs would do the job for them…” Scafe noted grimly. “Weiss was never the type to let common sense overshadow his planet-sized ego…”

“_Weiss,_ maybe…but he’s got Quantum to do the thinking,” Tsuneo countered. “They’re planning something more… Probably trying for a shot to the pride…”

“I still can’t believe this…and to think, this whole thing could have been avoided if we had simply upgraded our security!” Emily shook her head incredulously.

“Sweetie, don’t underestimate the Azure Initiative,” Athena warned. “ Even if we had upgraded security, they would probably have found another way to shut us down eventually.”

“Athena’s right…because the Azures had an ace in the hole: Quantum.” Before Tsuneo could elaborate, Scafe interrupted with a cough.

“Uh guys...I don’t think Quantum was their _only_ ace…” The dragon bit back a gulp as he caught sight of a speeding blur flying toward the mountain “We have a **big** problem at our six o’ clock!”

“Big, huh…” Brian furrowed his brow as he mentally reviewed the Initiative’s remaining resources. “Is it 1:30?”

“_Bigger_…and _flying._” As he squinted at the oncoming figure, Scafe suddenly made out some very familiar details. “What. The. _Actual. **FUCK!?**_”

“What is it, Scafe?” Tsuneo’s demand was answered when his fellow Councilman nearly dropped from the sky in his haste to land in front of the mountainside manor right beside him.

“It’s got _my_ wing, _your_ old mask’s lenses, Eli’s legs, Max and Juliet’s arms, and Brian’s body…all multiplied by a factor of _mega-ugly!_” Scafe’s hasty list made all of the Society members start.

“What in the name of the Nexus _is_ that fucking thing?!” Brian shouted. “And why does it have our features?!”

“I think we’ve found the rest of the Azures’ plan for us…” Tsuneo growled to himself, his signature weapon at the ready. “Brace yourself, Scafe; until the girls on EOD can finish their vital area sweep or Brian finishes the generator, we’re on our own for this one…”

“Lovely…and here I thought it was gonna be a _quiet_ day…” Despite his sarcasm, Scafe already had his weapons readied; scimitar in one hand and a chain in the other.

“Heh…never is. And truth be told, I’ve been itching for some fighting again…” Tsuneo took a defensive posture as the beast tried to dive bomb into the walls. “There! Get his neck chained!!”

Scafe was already moving, swinging his chains to intercept the monster’s crash course. The chains struck true, coiling around the beast’s neck…for all of three seconds before it spun in midair to shatter them.

“W-What the fuck!?” Scafe shouted. “The beast destroyed my chains like they were made of paper!”

With the dragon distracted, the Azure monster landed before him, digging its boney right claw into the ground. A moment later, a large mass of sand and dirt hit Scafe right in the face, blinding him.

“GAAAHH! F-FUCK! WHERE DID THAT SAND COME FROM?!”

With Tsuneo briefly distracted by Scafe’s predicament, the monster attacked the blinded dragon, dashing forward at blistering speed, it used its Juliet-like left arm to deliver a devastating palm strike to his chest, sending him careening towards the wall.

“Great… This thing doesn’t just have our looks to mock us…it’s got some of our own abilities!” Tsuneo rushed in to stall the beast’s approach, calling out to his fellow Councilman as he did. “Scafe, talk to me! How bad is it?”

“Aahh, f-_fuck!_” Scafe cried out, one hand over his eyes and the other clutching his chest from his position embedded in the wall. “T-This is worse than sand! This feels like ground-up glass…or bone! It _hurts!!_”

“Dammit!” Tsuneo snarled, both at Scafe’s predicament and the way his monstrous foe easily dodged his first slash. “Guys, no pressure or anything, but _hurry the fuck up_ with the tasks! It’s gonna take everything we’ve got just to _repel_ this thing!”

“Aw, garlic cloves!” B.Nana cried out. “Tsuneo’s soloing a massive monster outside and we’re still pulling bombs outta everywhere in here! We need some ideas!”

“Then _you_ go help him!” Irene answered. “I can use my portals to get you there and myself to all the important rooms!” As she spoke, she threw open a portal to the second floor window.

“Thanks, Irene!” B.Nana grinned eagerly as she began digging through unseen pockets. “Hang in there, Tsuneo - help is on the way~”

Down below, the monster roared as it turned its attention to the Society’s base, only to be stopped by the incoming Councilman. Once Tsuneo got close, its eyes shifted back towards him as it leapt away from the blade swinging at its back.

“You’re faster than you look, big guy… Fine, let’s play speed!” Tsuneo growled before smashing his sword between his fists, reforming the Ether into a pair of claws over his gloves. “**Violent Claws** at the ready, so _let’s get VIOLENT!_”

Observing Tsuneo’s weapon shift, the chimeric beast let out a low growl of its own before raising its left arm. With an odd noise somewhere between metallic scraping and fleshy squelching, a seam opened up on its palm, heralding the emergence of a large katana. Tsuneo frowned behind his mask as he watched his opponent deftly snatch the sword out of the air before taking a stance of its own.

“…Well, looks like we can add ‘skill’ to the list of things you copied from us,” he said. “Not what I expected, but let’s see if you can even _hit_ me with that oversized butter knife!”

The monster’s fang-filled mouth almost curled into a smirk as it made an arrogant beckoning gesture with its right claw. Falling for the taunt, Tsuneo surged forward with incredible speed, opening the next skirmish with a leap forward and a double overhead swipe with both hands; one claw glanced off the monster’s bone hand, while the other was caught on its blade.

“Come on, Tsuneo! You got this!!” Brian cheered from the distance, having moved to the nearest window as he put a few more parts on the replacement generator.

“Teach that fucker a lesson for taking our body parts… Ow!!” Scafe shouted, despite still being blinded.

The Chimera went for the same maneuver it did on Scafe, digging up dirt and sand and tossing it towards Tsuneo - fortunately, the warrior’s mask blocked the attempt to blind him. At the same moment, Tsuneo relented his hold on the blade and threw the monster’s arms wide.

“Wide open, now TAKE IT!” With his opening made, Tsuneo rushed at the chest with a flurry of slashing attacks from both claws, pushing the monster back as much as he could with the ten strikes he landed in three seconds. Suddenly, the eyes on the monster’s chest sparked, catching Tsuneo by surprise as it parried his next incoming attack and delivered a swift elbow strike to his midsection, sending him reeling.

“Fuuuh… You have counter training as well… Heh…nice… But not quite nice enough.” The words had barely left Tsuneo’s mouth before the monster took a deep breath and blew a large stream of sickly green fire in his direction. Tsuneo promptly jumped up to evade the flames, creating an opening for the monster to rush him. As it charged for him, Tsuneo changed weapons mid-fall and threw his spinner baseward. “**NOW, BRITTANY!**” he yelled.

“Woo! HEY FREAKAZOID!!” The monster turned its head towards B.Nana as she came out of the second story portal while Tsuneo reeled up and out of the way of what was coming.

“HOPE YOU'RE HUNGRY, BECAUSE I’M PACKING A MEAL TO _DIE_ FOR!!” Assisted by an Air Cannon from Irene’s own arsenal, the living fruit flew out of the portal at a blistering speed, holding a wide variety of fruit bombs in her arms. She impacted the monster’s chest head-on, using the recoil to bounce back and released her various fruity payloads at point-blank range.

“Let’s see you survive this, you fr-” B.Nana’s taunt died as the monster thrust its chest forward, revealing a vertical mouth between its abs that opened wide and inhaled the incoming bombs, swallowing each and every one B.Nana had tossed.

“I...I…I was just kidding when I said it was a meal!!!” B.Nana yelped as she landed on the ground with a “THUMP”.

The monster gave a slow, terrifying laugh as its belly mouth spat the bombs right back at B.Nana, each surrounded by an eerie blue light.

“Pardon my French, but…_FUUUUUUCCK!!!_” B.Nana shouted as she quickly fled from the incoming bombs.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” Irene growled quietly as she seized her communicator. “Permission to say ‘_fuck this_’ to EOD and jump into the fray?”

“Shit! We have no choice!” Brian growled, similarly abandoning his work on the generator. “We’re not getting anywhere against that monster in ones or twos; we need to get out there and help!”

“_Yeah! Forget what Tsuneo said!_” Zeus roared. “_Everyone! Get out there and **waste** that abomination!!!_

“Now _that_ is music to my ears~!” Irene laughed gleefully as she opened a portal to bring herself to the fray. The other Society members similarly ran outside to join the fight against the Azure Initiative’s new monster.

“Whoaaa…it _does_ look like a bunch of us stuck together!” Emily gasped. “How’d Weiss even find all these spare us-es to put together, anyway!?”

“Believe me, I too would LOVE to know about that,” Brian responded dryly. “Seriously, the fact that Weiss went out of his way to make a Chimera based on us is…kind of creepy on _many_ levels.”

“It’s like the fucker is obsessed with you guys, and not in the _I want revenge_ way. More like…hate-fucking?” Irene’s face and wings went pale green at the thought.

Just then, the Society’s ears perked up when a loud beeping was heard from the Chimera’s belt. It looked at its belt for a brief second before reaching for it and pressing its finger on the buckle, causing it to release a beam of light onto the ground. The Society watched in confusion as a holographic figure appeared in the light; none other than Weiss himself.

“Well well weeeell~ The Dicks and Cunts in red~” he sneered. “How the hell are ya? Still dealing with a power outage? Such a shame; you guys are missing so much. The football game is on, and man, lemme tell ya: Grade-A shit right there.”

“Weiss. Why am I not surprised that this ugly sack of crap is your doing!?” Brian shouted.

“Oh-ho-ho, I see you met the Azure Initiative’s new **mascot!**” Weiss chuckled. “Cool, ain’t he? I figured that you assholes needed a lesson in how to _really_ use your abilities to the fullest like we do, so I thought: _why not put ‘em all into one big, badass monster and turn ‘em against you?_”

“Weiss, you have a _lot_ of answering to do!” Tsuneo growled. “Cutting our power to our entire home is one thing, but sending this thing at our weakest?”

“That’s the difference between your group and mine, Deadhead.” Weiss shrugged with an insincere look of apology. “Unlike you idiots, we here at the Azure Initiative like to plan ahead with our strategies. We don’t just _rely_ on one major plan; that shit got Marcell and Sylvie killed. Good work on that, by the way! It’s like our pad just got sprayed for roaches…if roaches could play loud-ass metal or rant endlessly ‘bout _My Shitty Pony_, anyways.”

“Alright then, Weiss. Then maybe you can answer _this_ question for us.” Irene groaned, her wings turning black. “What, in the everliving **fuck** is that abomination you created?!”

Weiss’s smug grin only widened. “Well…I guess you all deserve to understand the genius of my creativity before it becomes the _death_ of you. Hehehehe, see that, Brian? You aren’t the only one with a creative mind~”

“Oh shove it, you egotistical prick, and _get to the point!_” Brian snapped.

“Hmph. So much for all that ‘famous patience’,” Weiss chuckled. “You see, back when you scumbags were screwing around and saving your friend, my team took the liberty of ransacking your precious base. Not just for the sake of pissing you off, but for some…_other_ important projects.”

“Tsuneo…remind me to relocate our base when we finish here…” Brian groaned.

“Noted,” Tsuneo responded.

“One of the most important things we needed were certain portions of DNA from 5 lucky Society members,” Weiss continued. “And to my pleasant surprise, we grabbed four key members of the Society~! The Spider Bitch, The Dragon Bitch, the Chinchilla Bitch, and the British Bitch!”

“Wow! If Max was here, he’d say that was racist!” Becky commented in between trying to pry Scafe free from the wall.

“Now hold on a minute there, edgelord!” Emily pointed out. “You said you got five! You only counted four!”

“…I was getting to that, you rotting moron,” Weiss growled. “Anyways…we got 4 of the Councilmen, but as an added bonus, we also managed to get the DNA of that emo-punk Juliet. So, with those five building blocks and a few cybernetic enhancements, I had our experts cook up something really juicy. Something fantastic that only _I_ could approve. And then, badda-boom, badda-bing!” He turned around to get a good look at his creation. “_This_ baby was born! Head and Wings of the Dragon, Body of the Spider-Bunny, Left Arm of the Cyborg, Right Arm of the Assassin, and the legs of the Chinchilla! Combining speed, strength, skill, smarts, and all-around savagery! We have made the greatest monster in the world! He has all of your combat qualities, making him the most unstoppable chimera ever~ We call him…_The Crimson Chimera._”

“_More like a total **clusterfuck,**_” Zeus muttered under his breath.

“Yeah…” Brian nodded slowly, only to freeze as something occurred to him. “Y’know, Zeus, I think you’re onto something…”

“_…I am?_” Zeus parroted.

“…No. No! No no _no NO!_” Weiss barked, recognizing the trollish grin spreading across Brian’s face. “Don’t you DARE sully the awesomeness of my Crimson Chimera with one of your shitty nicknames-”

“Hey guys~!” the spider-bunny shouted. “How does that sound?? **Clusterfuck!** Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Weiss’s hand met his face with a resounding slap as several Society members bit back laughter while giving their assent. “I hate you _so goddamn much_…” he snarled through gritted teeth.

“Well, _somebody’s_ got a hate-boner for us,” Irene snarked. “Newsflash, Maple Leaf: I’m flattered, but I have a type, and it’s not you.”

“Welp, the wind may be knocked out of his sails, but that doesn’t make Weiss’s new pet any less of a threat. Everyone, we gotta stand against it!” Brian’s call prompted a series of nods from his allies as they formed up behind him, ready to fight.

“Hahahaha!” Weiss’s irritation evaporated in an instant as he regained his confident sneer. “So you still think you can take him, eh? Well, you’re even _bigger_ idiots than I thought if you think he’s like one of Sylvie’s equine freakshows. He might _look_ like just another hulking brute, but this beast of mine has intelligence, skill, and everything else he needs to make the most persistent would-be warrior beg for mercy…even _you_, NeverDead.”

“Hmph…I assume you’ve been planning something like this ever since you bombed our old base, then.” Tsuneo stepped up beside Brian, his arms crossed. “After all, what fate’s more ironic than being slain by my own companions of old…or maybe you thought that I’d be unable to raise my blade against the only friends I had on this hollow shell of a planet, even if it was a poor facsimile of what remained of them?” His tone was calm, but the red lenses of his mask radiated contempt.

“…On that note, Weiss, I have a question.” Irene’s wings turned translucent as her face lost all emotion. “How would you like to die. And please, don’t ask for it to be quick; that’s _not_ gonna happen.”

“We-e-ell, let me answer that question with another question.” Weiss lowered his shades just enough to meet Irene’s stoic glare. “…How do ya feel ‘bout _lasers?_”

“Wha-” In her moment of confusion, Irene was left wide open for the Chimera to fire large purple lasers from the eyes on its pecs. Weiss laughed hysterically as the beams struck the pyromancer dead on.

“HAHAHAHA! Like a moth led to a lantern~!” After a moment, Weiss got ahold of himself and resumed smirking wickedly at the stunned Society. “Alright losers, I’ve got more important things to worry about, so I’ll leave you to die now. Crimson Chimera? Be a good boy and dispose of our bug problem.”

The Chimera growled in assent as the holographic image of Weiss disappeared from its belt. At the same time, it finally dispelled its lasers, leaving Irene to drop to the ground with a nasty burn on her chest.

“YOU **SON OF A-**” As if the sight of Irene’s fall was a signal, Tsuneo broke formation and leapt into a frenzied flurry of claws, taking the high option to let his friends behind focus on other attack avenues. The rest of the Society was only a second behind, with Becky darting to the Azure beast’s left side.

“Alright, you freak of nature!” she growled. “Let’s see how you like a bad case of _cold feet!_” She put a hand to her lips and blew a gust of icy wind like a kiss; however, the Chimera twirled its sword to catch the ice breath like spaghetti noodles on a fork.

“W-w-what in the-!! You _can’t_ be seri-” Becky was suddenly cut off once all of her ice breath had been entwined in the creature’s sword. With one mighty swing, the monster released the chilling mist towards the group.

“Look out!! Ice incoming!!” Brian shouted, backpedaling to Irene as she struggled to sit up. “Irene, turn up the heat!”

“No need to say it twice!” With a sweep of her arm, Irene blocked the mist with a wall of fire, only to wince as the movement renewed the pain lancing through her injured chest. “Ffff**fuck!** That cheap shot…did a number on me…”

“_Damn it all to hell!_” Zeus shouted, too focused on the fight to even take the opportunity for an easy joke about Irene’s ‘natural padding’ blocking most of the blast. “_Trust that fucker Weiss to send something like _this_ at us while half the crew is out Zoroark hunting! If the others were here, we’d had a better advantage-_” His rant was interrupted when Tsuneo was flung back into his friends, knocking B.Nana over in the process.

“Well, they aren’t,” the undead Councilman replied, shaking off his daze as he jumped back to his feet. “We have to make do until either they get here or we conquer this ugly bastard!”

“I wouldn’t be so confident…” Becky pointed up at the Chimera as it took to the skies. “It’s stronger and faster than all of us combined, and it’s got more tricks than the average stage magician! Tavo’s beasts could handle some of the load if he wasn’t down, and Tim’s time magic could bring his speed down to something we could manage…figures that two of the best guys to fight this thing are already out of action!”

“I’d bring out Becquerel and bring this thing down a notch if I wasn’t worried about getting you all caught in the crossfire.” Irene growled, still trying to stand despite the pain of her injuries. “I hate to say it, but we’re-”

“_Don’t_ tell me the odds, you two!” Tsuneo barked back, summoning his tonfa. “I’m not about to lose you all again, and _definitely_ not to this mockery of my best friends! Time to see if the **Anarchy Carvers** can’t challenge his air game!”

As Tsuneo jumped skyward, holding his tonfa out like wings, Brian managed to get back to his feet to rally the rest of his friends. “He’s right! We gotta hit this son of a bitch with everything we got! Everyone, let’s-!!” His orders were interrupted when the Chimera roared, its chest eyes emitting a familiar evil glow.

“_Ah shit! He’s going for another one!!_” Zeus shouted in turn as the group dove for cover to avoid being hit by the lasers.

“I got it!” Using the excellent aerial movement afforded to him by his tonfa, Tsuneo glided in front of the beast, crossing his blades directly in the line of fire. The dual beams struck with enough force to break the zombie’s guard, allowing the Chimera to deliver a very swift kick to his chest that sent him rocketing back to the ground.

“He’s open!” Emily yelled. “Hit him with everything!!” At that, everyone leveled the weapons they had at the flying monster, including a mostly-recovered Irene.

“Oh, I’ll hit him all right.” Despite the continued dull sting in her chest, Irene smirked as she aimed her rocket launcher at the Chimera’s chest-face. “He won’t even know what hit him~” As she prepared to fire, however, she took in a breath and closed her eyes. “No, no, no. Now isn’t the time for this.”

“What’s wrong, Irene??” Becky asked, quickly turning her attention to her friend of the opposite element.

“Don’t worry about me; just focus on the flying fucker.” Irene said with a sigh, lining up her shot before pulling the trigger. With a loud *BANG*, a very fast rocket blazed toward the chimera, quickly joined by the other Society members’ attacks; Brian drew up a rocket of his own, B.Nana threw out a cluster of Banana Bombs, and Becky hurled a big ball of icy spikes that exploded into frozen needles on contact with its target.

“Yeaaah! Direct hits, all of ‘em!” Emily cheered, seeing the Chimera land after those explosions. Its body was heavily charred and dotted with small wounds, but it was far from beaten - if its beastly roar was any indication, the joint assault had only enraged it.

“This guy just won’t go down!” B.Nana shouted, chucking another handful of Banana Bombs. “Isn’t there _any_ way to beat him? Weakness? Strategy?? ANYTHING?!”

Brian thought to himself for a moment, eyeing the Crimson Chimera warily. Just then, he started to understand the Chimera’s tactics and battle strategy; and with it, a plan to overcome it.

“Guys! I think I have an idea!” he shouted. “This Chimera’s design is basically a mishmash of me, Scafe, Max, Eli, and Juliet; right?”

“What was your first clue, genius?!” Irene shouted.

“Well, call it a hunch, but by that notion, that must mean it also thinks and fights like us too! So in essence, we need to use that against it!”

“Good idea…on paper!” Becky called back. “Problem is, he’s got all of your moves _combined_ and the smarts to use ‘em! We’ll be stomped into the dirt long before we figure out how to beat _all five of you at once_!”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to try!” Brian shouted, holding his pencil at the ready. “Tsuneo!! Follow my lead on this one! Keep him busy while I cook something up for this fucker!” He paused to await the zombie’s response, only to be rewarded with silence. “…Tsuneo?” He looked up to see the NeverDead still lying in the impact crater from the Chimera’s last kick - it didn’t look like he’d be getting up either, much like Scafe.

“…Fuck.” Brian cursed as he revised his budding plan on the fly. “Okay then…Irene! You still able to use a shotgun??”

“Y-yeah.” Irene spoke, summoning the weapon to her hands. “Becquerel might be too risky, but Curie’s still got some punch!”

“Good. When I give the signal, be ready to shoot that thing!” Brian whirled around to call to the walking fruit-woman. “B.Nana!! Keep him busy!”

“Okie-dokie!!!” B.Nana shouted, tossing more bombs at the Chimera as the hybrid began drawing wildly. The Chimera growled angrily and focused its attention on the sentient banana, furiously swinging its blade. Although B.Nana used her agility to maneuver away from the attacks, she was caught by the edge of the blade several times, leaving long scratches in her peel. In a panic, she grabbed an especially large bunch of Banana Bombs, which let the beast catch her with a surprise sweep kick.

“EEEK!! B-BRIAN!! HEEELP!” B.Nana cowered as Clusterfuck loomed over her, raising his right arm to crush her into pulp. Before the monster could strike, a familiar voice drew its attention.

“HEY UGLY!!” Brian shouted, hefting a large Rocket Launcher over his shoulder. “HERE’S A PRESENT FOR YA!” With a whoop, he pulled the trigger, sending a large rocket flying at his foe. With a frustrated snarl, the Chimera quickly used its wing to hop above the incoming rocket, bringing a devious smile to Brian’s face.

“Gotcha~!” he said. “IRENE! NOW! BLAST THAT THING!”

Using a portal to keep her aim at the beast's chest, Irene smirked, “Should’ve built you better,” and pulled the trigger, hitting it directly in the chest. The Chimera cried out in pain as the blast sent it crashing into the ground.

“_HA HA! It worked!_” Zeus cheered. “_Good thinking, Brian…but how did you know that would work??_”

“Scafe is a good fighter, with cunning and brute strength to spare…but he’s a predictable dodger,” Brian explained. “If something comes at him from ground level, he’ll ALWAYS try to go over it - and just as I predicted, ol’ Clusterfuck has the same problem!”

“Hahaha, I see~” Irene grinned. “So we just have to figure out the combat weaknesses of everyone the Chimera is based on and use it against him to win this battle. Not bad, Brian~”

“Hehehe, thanks!” Brian smiled. “Too bad Tsuneo is down - this sort of thing is his specialty - but we can’t always rely on him! Come on, everyone; just follow my instructions and we should have this thing beat in no time!”

The Society readied themselves as the Chimera got up, eyes blazing red in anger as it grabbed its sword and ran towards Irene, swinging wildly.

“Ah-ha! I know this one!” Brian shouted. “Irene! Wait ‘till he gets close enough to you, then dodge and attack him from behind!”

Irene’s wings and face paled. “You want me to _what,_” she deadpanned.

“Just trust me on this!” Brian bellowed, drawing up another rocket to stuff into his launcher. “I’ve seen Juliet do this one a million times!”

“I hope you’re right…” Irene groaned as the Chimera ran closer, trying to quell her nerves as she focused. At the last moment, she opened a portal directly above herself and flew into it, emerging from another portal right behind the beast. Before Clusterfuck could even register its target’s disappearance, Irene fired her shotgun directly into the Chimera’s back, with the recoil sending the butt of the gun into her wounded chest.

“Yes! Got ‘im!” Brian pumped his fist in victory as the beast fell on its face. “Juliet’s biggest combat weakness is her short temper. Whenever things go pear-shaped, she’ll ditch the strategic combat and go on a berserk offensive! Her dad’s been on her ass about it for as long as I’ve known her.”

“…Remind me…to smack her…stupid for…using a move…like that…” Irene snarled as she fell to the ground, clutching her chest in pain. “Sorry, Brian…that one…got me pretty…good; I need to…catch my breath…”

“We’ve got its number now!” Becky cheered. “What next, Brian?”

In response, the spider-bunny kept a close eye on the Chimera as it staggered to its feet, trying to guess its next move. From her position on the ground, Irene noticed it digging up sand in its right claw, ready to attack the distracted cryomancer.

“BECKY! LOOK OUT!” she shouted.

Becky turned just in time to see the Chimera hurling the sand and bone dust towards her. She quickly closed her eyes and shielded her face with her arms, leaving her exposed to a quick attack; luckily, Brian cried out to her before the monster could strike.

“BECKY! WHEN I SAY NOW, REACH OUT AND GRAB ONTO HIS ARM!”

“WHAT?! ARE YOU FUCKING CRA-”

“**NOW!!!**”

Acting on reflex rather than reason, Becky blindly lashed out with a burst of ice magic; to her surprise, she heard the telltale crackle of something being frozen right in front of her. Cracking open one eye, it took all she had not to yelp in fright when she saw the Chimera’s massive right arm inches from her face, encased in a heavy layer of ice and frost. Clusterfuck growled in confusion and annoyance as it struggled with its suddenly-immobilized limb, giving Becky time to dart away.

“W-Whoa…I was almost an icy shish-ka-bob there!” Becky laughed in relief. “I’m guessing that was one of Max’s favorites?”

“Bingo,” Brian replied. “Being an assassin, Max likes waiting for his enemies to be stunned or distracted before he goes for the kill. However, several spars with him have taught me that he’s usually not prepared for someone catching onto his surprise attacks.”

“_Now _this_ is more like it~!_” Zeus crowed. “_Guess Weiss had never counted on us beating this thing by using combat weaknesses. It makes me wonder, were they ever aware of this?_”

As if on cue, the Chimera unleashed a barrage of lasers right at Becky as she fled, not as stunned as Max usually would have been at this point in time. Not quite at her optimal range, Becky wasn’t able to completely dodge the barrage, with a laser clipping her side to knock her down. With the cryomancer briefly incapacitated, the beast gave a roar of furious triumph, also breathing fire over its arm to defrost it.

“…Well…yeah, they were.” Brian rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Which can sometimes lead to some devastating retaliation; Max _also_ taught me that during our spars…”

“Aah, lychee nuts! Brian, I think the Chimera picked up on your quick thinking!” B.Nana called nervously. “He’s countering our counters!”

“He got lucky once, we’ve still got the edge…right?” Brian added hopefully, although his drooping ears betrayed his own unease.

“_We’re not out of tricks yet,_” Zeus piped up. “_We haven’t even exploited Eli’s weakness yet…this freak’s got his legs, which means-_” His deduction was prematurely proved correct when the Chimera all but teleported towards Brian for a fierce shoulder tackle, knocking him to the ground in a painful skid.

“_Argh! …Yeeep. He’s got…Eli’s…speed…_” the Parasite finished weakly.

“Wait…that’s it!” Brian’s ears perked as he lifted himself out of the new trench. “Eli’s a speedy fighter! Like a ninja, the man is always moving. You can never seem to get the drop on him with his speed…but he sometimes lets that advantage go to his head. So, to exploit that, we need to punish him for his carelessness.”

“_If it’s what I think your thinking, then you better make sure Clusterfuck doesn’t catch wind of it!_” Zeus said warily.

“Leave that one to me; Bri-Bri!” Emily shouted. “We’ll keep Clusterfuck busy with a good ol’ fashioned monster fight! Athena! _Let’s go!!_”

“As you wish, darling~” Athena’s voice shifted from Emily’s hand to her mouth as their shared body mutated to its Hostile form. The Chimera tilted its head in mild interest, but was soon met with a quick slice on its chest, leaving a bloody slash mark near one of the eyes on its pecs.

“Playtime is over, beast.” Athena allowed a rare snarl of her own to escape her oversized fangs as she extended a pair of wicked bone blades from her arms. “ If you seek to harm my companions, you shall answer to me!!!”

As the Hostilized goat fought against the Chimera, Brian quickly ran towards B.Nana, who was unsurprisingly in a fetal position, panicking.

“B.Nana!” Brian shouted. “I need you!”

“We’re doomed! We’re doomed! Pretty sure we’re doomed! Are we doomed?! Because I think we are D.O.O.M.E.D. DO- Oww!” The walking banana yelped as one of Brian’s spider limbs found her cheek.

“_GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF, DAMMIT!_” Zeus thundered. “_We have a very important task for you!_”

“R-R-Right…w-what’s up?” B.Nana asked, shaking off the panicking feeling as she met Brian and Zeus’s stern but calming gaze.

“I need you to plant a Fruit Mine _exactly_ where we are standing,” Brian explained. “Once you’re done, I want you to throw another Banana Bomb to get his attention, but make it look like _I_ was the one who threw it; if it works, he’ll come after me. I’ll shoot at him to keep his attention on me; he’ll try to dodge my attacks, but I’m counting on that. If all goes well, he’ll stupidly step right onto the sweet spot~”

“Ooooooh…okay!” B.Nana responded with glee. “Then I’ll plant five in a horizontal row! Should give you a much bigger advantage for your plan to work~!”

“Good thinking, Nana!” The hybrid Councilman nodded approvingly. “Now come on! I don’t think Emily will be able to hold out against the creature much longer, even in her Hostile form.”

B.Nana nodded and started to use her gardening skills to grow and create five Fruit Mines. Once created, she set them in a horizontal line, spreading them out to widen the odds. With that done, B.Nana quickly got behind a bush, tossing a Banana Bomb with all her might towards the battling duo. Meanwhile, the Chimera was spewing purple flames at Hostile Emily before darting towards her, swinging its bony right claw. Athena crossed her blades to meet the attack, but the sheer force of the blow nearly broke right through her guard (and _did_ manage to make a small crater under her feet).

“It seems we’ve bit off more than we could chew with this one!” Athena said.

“_Dammit, Athena, do you always gotta make this about my weight?_” Emily whined mentally.

“This is no time for jokes, Emily!”” Athena yelled. “This beast has tremendous power! I can sense significant amounts of Hostile energy in this one; similar to Zeus’s, but far greater!” She let out a grunt as she felt her defenses weakening. “Just what exactly did Weiss use to create the body?? Is this a poor man’s Hostile??”

With its current target occupied, the Chimera opened its stomach maw and focused its strength for a strong inhale. “_Whooa!! I think he’s trying to eat us!!_” Emily shouted. “_That’s _my_ thing - it’s even copying _me_ now!!_”

“Hey! Eat _this,_ ugly!” Brian called out just as B.Nana’s bomb exploded right next to the Chimera’s head. Glimpsing the rocket launcher in the hybrid’s hands, the beast shoved Athena aside before rushing at Brian. The latter fired a few rockets to divert the monster’s path towards the mines; sure enough, it soon stepped on one of the planted bombs, blowing up the entire line in spectacular fashion.

“Yes! Just like we plaaaaOOOH SHIT!!!” B.Nana cut herself off and started to run as Clusterfuck came charging out of the explosion, its legs mostly intact. Using the explosion’s backdraft to propel itself towards the perpetrator, it blasted a fireball to send her reeling. “AAAH! HOT HOT!!!”

“Damn it! How did he know!?” Brian cursed aloud before Zeus slapped his forehead for him.

“_Brian, that thing’s got plenty of eyes! It probably saw what B.Nana was doing while it was dealing with Emily! Setup on an advantage like that doesn’t work; we’d know, after all._” The Parasite hissed grimly as he surveyed the scene. “_We’re losing people and fast; Brian, we can’t keep this up!_”

“I KNOW, ZEUS!” Brian screamed. “But we can’t just leave; this freak’s gonna annihilate our base and go after Eli and the others if we don’t stop him here and now! We _CAN’T_ give up; there must be _something_ we’ve got left in the tank!”

As he spoke, Brian scanned the battlefield, desperate for a plan of some sort. Most of his friends were lying on the ground in various places, groaning in pain, struggling to move, and clearly in no shape to fight…save one.

“A-HA!” The hybrid’s heart leapt as he spotted Tsuneo getting to his feet, his usual battle-readiness strangely absent. “Tsuneo’s awake; if _anyone_ can turn this shitstorm around, it’s gotta be him!” Trying to ignore the sound and sight of Emily being knocked away by the force of Clusterfuck’s blade snapping her bone claws clean in half, he rushed to his undead friend as fast as his legs could carry him.

“Hey, Tsuneo! Hope you enjoyed the dirt nap, because we have one _hell_ of a fight to finish! Everyone’s down but you and me, so we gotta-” Brian skidded to a stop and cocked his head in confusion when there was no response from his friend - he only continued to stand in place, his masked gaze aimed straight at the ground. “…Tsuneo?! Dude, wake up!! We’re in the middle of a battlefield here!!!”

Brian was just about to grab the zombie by his collar for a good shaking when the latter’s entire body seemed to shudder, the red veins on his arms turning abyssal black. The movement made Tsuneo’s mask fall off, revealing the same blackness coloring his sclerae and facial veins. Brian took an involuntary step back as Tsuneo finally looked back at him, his very being radiating an intent that could only be described as _murderous_.

“…Oh…fignuts,” Brian squeaked out at last. He had never seen his old friend in this state before, but he had a feeling that it was a portent of _very_ bad things to come…

**-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-**


	3. Inflitration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Concurrent with Chapter 2) With the newly-dubbed Clusterfuck taking on the rest of the Society, Eli and his group are left to find Quantum and take him down.

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6.2B: Infiltration

_ **Last time on Tales of the Society...** _

_The damage inflicted by the Azure Initiative’s attack on the Crimson Society’s unguarded base ran far deeper than the latter initially thought: in addition to planting explosives and generally trashing the place, they hacked into the mansion’s systems to drive everything haywire. A hijacked attempt to demonstrate their new security system informed our heroes of the cause: Quantum, Weiss’s top ‘tech geek’. Quickly tracing the cyborg Zoroark’s transmissions to a remote outpost north of their base, Eli assembled a team to take him off the air: Zuula, Max, Juliet, and Dante._

_Since the Azures sabotaged the power generator (and boobytrapped the teleporter room for good measure), the strike team has set out by car to reach their destination. They know full well that they’re driving into a trap, but they have no choice; if they ever want to restore normalcy at their home, they must push forward and shut down Quantum’s latest operation…assuming they can overcome the obstacles undoubtedly laid in their path…and directly behind them._

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Well, shit.” Eli was the first to comment as the mountain pass behind them was obstructed by a landslide. “I dunno what that huge thing that just flew by was, but it wrecked our path back home. Hopefully the others can handle it…” His ears drooped slightly at the mere thought of his friends getting hurt.

“Give ‘em some credit, Eels,” Juliet said, patting his back. “The others are just fine. For now, we should focus on the task at hand…like what this outpost is gonna be. We might just end up passing it by if we aren’t paying attention.”

“Uhm…I don’t think we’ll miss _that,_ Jules.” Dante jerked a thumb out the window beside him, indicating what looked like a small military installation off the side of the mountain road. “Seems just like Dickhead-In-Charge to have something that plain obvious.”

“Well, so much for rolling out the red carpet,” Zuula clicked in disappointment. “So what’s the plan, my friends?”

“The short version is to basically bust through that area, find Quantum, and put an end to his degenerate antics.” Max explained, focusing on the structure as the road turned to put it directly in front of them. “Of course, that’s discounting whatever traps Quantum’s prepared for us along the way; believe me, he _will_ have something especially devious set up by now.”

“Don’t get your coat in a twist,” Juliet scoffed. “I’ve seen more situations like this than I can remember back when I was in White Noise; walking right into a trap where the baddie of the day knows exactly when and how we’re comin’ by and has some _welcome wagon of doom_ or some shit prepared.”

“Babe, you’re getting a little too cocky here.” Eli shook his head. “This is Quantum we’re talking about; dude is about as unpredictable as Brian’s ideas.”

“I think I can handle it, Eli,” Juliet responded before giving the chinchilla a death glare. “And don’t call me ‘babe’ unless you want a _real_ close full-body shave!” With a flick of her wrist, she produced a throwing knife between her fingers for emphasis.

“Whoa there!” Dante exclaimed, although his eyes sparkled with amusement. “As hilarious as that mental image is, we should probably save that kinda stuff for _after_ we unplug ol’ Robo-ark! The sooner we do that, the sooner I can get back to beating all the high scores back at base-”

“-_and,_ perhaps, resuming our hunt for the rest of the Azures?” Zuula added wryly.

“Well, yeah. Obviously!” Dante finished. “After all, I don’t even know too much about ol’ Mirror-Dome, but based on what I’ve heard from y’all, I wanna kick his ass too.”

“You’ll get your chance soon enough, Dante, ‘cause here we are!” Eli brought the car to a stop a short distance away from the base. After scanning the surroundings for any obvious traps, he turned off the engine and signalled everyone to get out.

“Well well…I have to give Quantum credit,” Max began, examining the area. “He sure knows how to nail that ‘creepy abandoned military’ aesthetic…either that, or we have our old ‘_friend_’ Nesmon to thank for this.”

“Probably,” Juliet commented. “It just screams ‘high-tech Neo-Nazi hideout’ - I guess Quantum must’ve repurposed it for his little ‘system fuckery’ trick. So…how do we go about infiltrating this place?”

The question had barely left the cyborg’s mouth when a high-pitched beep came from the base. All eyes turned to the front door as it slid open with a low hiss, revealing only blackness beyond.

“Well, that’s convenient.” Dante’s wry words sharply contrasted his narrowed eyes. “Anyone wanna guess how many steps we’ll take before we get caught in a trap?”

“If you ask me, Quantum would feel that one step would be one too many,” Max responded. “But we don’t have much of a choice. Now then; should we split up or stick together?”

“I would suggest working as one unit,” Zuula clicked thoughtfully. “There’s strength in numbers, especially when hunting such cunning prey; if all you’ve said about Quantum is true, he’ll be more than capable of picking us off if we split up.”

“Good thinking, Zuula…unless that’s what Quantum _wants_ us to think.” Juliet frowned behind her mask. “For all we know, he could be counting on us sticking together so he can snap us all up at once…or maybe he’s expecting us to expect _that_ and prepared for us splitting up after all?”

“If I know that cheater, he’s probably ready for _both_ options,” Eli said darkly. “Then let’s do it this way: Boys up front, girls get the flanks, quick and quiet.” With a combined nod, the other four of them get into formation and advance on the base…to Eli’s surprise, without immediate alarms.

“Huh…seems like Quantum’s letting us in.” Max’s eyes flicked around behind his mask, searching for the smallest hint of a trap or defense system in every corner of the area. “His mistake, I guess; we’ve already got some ground to hold if he raises the defenses now.” 

“Focus, boys,” Juliet warned. “That just means he’s leading us somewhere. No news is definitely _not_ good news behind enemy lines.”

The words had barely left Juliet’s mouth when the base seemed to roar to life, guns sprouting out of every conceivable surface save for the entryway Dante was nearest to.

“Well, he makes a persuasive argument; follow the leader or get swiss cheesed!!” With that shout, Dante made a mad dash for the open door as the turrets opened fire. The others quickly followed suit as Eli brought up the rear, spinning his staff rapidly to block as many of the bullets as he could. Despite his efforts, the volume of fire was too much; a few rounds managed to slip past the chinchilla’s guard as he spilled through the doors, allowing Juliet and Zuula to pull them shut.

“Gah… That smarts a bit.” Eli chuckled wryly as he held the arm that got hit by a round, glancing at a similar hole in his left pant leg. “Looks like I might not be _up to speed_ today…”

“Shit, man…you gonna be ok, Eels?” Juliet asked, looking at Eli’s gunshot wound. “Those gotta sting quite a bit, but it looks like they went clean through, so no worries there… Think you’ll be able to keep up?”

“We’ve all had worse here,” Eli replied as Max handed him a roll of bandage tape to bind the wounds. “I’ll be damned if I let it stop me. Dante, hang back a sec til I get this done; the rest of you go further in.”

“You heard him, ladies. Let’s get a move on.” With a nod, Max led Juliet and Zuula down the hall while Eli sat down to get his leg wrapped up, with Dante keeping his eyes peeled for anything else that could make Eli’s situation worse.

“We really should keep our eyes out for anything suspicious…” Dante said. “If those guns told us anything, we could be dealing with more shit…”

“We really _should_ be right now…Quantum usually has every base covered with tacks, landmines and toxic waste,” Eli grimly noted, looking around. “Blind spots ain’t his style, especially in his element and homestead… What is he _doing?_”

The answer was waiting further down the hall; as Max, Juliet, and Zuula continued their search, the latter’s path crossed with a slightly-discolored tile on the floor. While glancing around suspiciously, Juliet noticed the discrepancy and shouted a warning.

“ZUULA, STOP!!”

“H-Huh?! What?!” Zuula reacted just a hair too late; her foot had already touched the discolored tile. As the tile sank ever-so-slightly into the floor, a loud whirr was heard from within the room. In seconds, the walls came apart as the tiles on it relocated in front of and behind them, opening up a different hallway.

“Well… That wasn’t so-” The words barely left Zuula’s mouth before an enormous laser blasted through the new hallway, with all three members scrambling against the walls to avoid it. Squinting past the glare of the beam, they could just barely see the barrel of a massive laser cannon further down the hall as the blast faded.

“WHOA!” Max shouted as he hit the wall. Zuula had taken a glancing blow from the blast, but nothing too serious due to her shell. The glow of the laser was visible even through the reconfigured walls, prompting Eli to rub his temples with his good hand.

“Laser traps…” he groaned. “...Why did it have to be laser traps? …And bad news, that sealed our way forward, Dante. He’s separated us.”

The raccoon-dog raised an eyebrow. “What, can’t I just blast down the wall? That fucker already knows we’re here, no use being quiet-”

“You saw those wall tiles move to block the hallway; they’ll probably separate at will to hit you in turn if you tried,” Eli noted, glancing at the other side halls. “Watch your footing, and let’s just move through here.”

“Actually, we need to be on the lookout for any tile that isn’t navy blue.” Dante began. “And judging from the structure of this room...there’s a lot of tiles with different hues of navy blue...so I’m going to assume that they each have something different.” 

“Perception. Looks good on you, Dante.” Eli chuckled jokingly, running along behind him, slowed by the leg shot, but unhindered otherwise. In the other hall, Max had closed the distance on the laser emitter, jamming his blade into the lens to blow it up.

“Finally…that heat was going to cook us alive if we didn’t shut it off.” Max gave a sigh, shaking his head as he tried to blink the spots out of his eyes. “Looks like we’re split up, girls… The other two will find a different way; we gotta keep going. There’s an access grate past this emitter.”

“Grrrr…this is why I hate traps,” Juliet growled. “So help me, when I get my hands on that cybernetic Pokemon…”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, my dear,” Zuula clicked chidingly. “Take some time to savor the chase~”

“Zuula, this isn’t like one of your stinking hunts back at the Lost Pit, ya know….”

“Come on, ladies,” Max called out, leading the two onward as they continued on their path carefully. Meanwhile, in an undisclosed part of the facility, Quantum sat in front of a large row of monitors, watching the intruders’ progress intently.

“It appears that they are making good progress,” he said. “They appear to believe that they can avoid my traps…let us determine how far they will advance before they realize their error.” He’d allow himself a small smirk before one of the other monitors caught his eye. “What’s this? Another intruder infiltrated beneath my notice… I’ll make sure he receives a proper welcome as well…”

Meanwhile, Dante and Eli had reached the end of the hallway, finding a large circular opening before them. “…So, Dante…any bets this tunnel is another trap?” Eli scoffed.

“Gee, I dunno, Eli.” Dante looked to his friend. “Why don’t you go in first and leave your wallet here with me?”

“Touche, Mr. _Fuck you, I’m immortal_,” Eli snarked back.

“Sure. Immortal. Right.” Dante shook his head. “Either way, looks like it’s the only way forward…” 

Moving quickly but carefully, Dante and Eli got themselves into the circular tunnel, keeping themselves together to avoid activating any more traps. Unfortunately for them, the tunnel was a fairly cramped space, forcing them to move at a literal and figurative crawl; consequently, they missed the hair-thin beams of green light disturbed by their passing. Soon, however, Eli noticed something else; a soft hissing in the depths of the tunnel. 

“…? Hey, Dante?” he asked. “Do you hear that strange hissing sound?”

“Hmmm…now that you mention it…yeah.” Dante looked back to where they came from, noticing faint fumes starting to leak out of the tunnel. “Uhh…don’t look now, Eli, but…I think we’ve set off the built-in ‘exterminator protocol’ in here…”

“Of. Fucking. _Course._” Eli didn’t even need to look behind him to confirm Dante’s worries; now that he thought about it, the hissing could only be the sound of gas being released into the tunnel. “And knowing Quantum, this ain’t something as nice and clean as knockout gas, either; _move it,_ Dante, so we can get out of here!!” 

“YOU get outta here!” Dante pushed on Eli’s backside with a very forceful shove, throwing him out a fair ways forward, as the chinchilla scrambled out of the tunnel. He could finally see what the gas had done, causing some discoloration on his clothes he could only liken to…

“Corrosive gas…Dante, _move your ass outta there!!_” Eli reached his staff in for Dante to grab; once he felt a tug, he gave a great heave to pull the reckless raccoon-dog out of the tunnel. The save seemed to have been just in time; several bits of Dante’s fur were still corroding away, along with a good portion of his clothes and hat.

“Aw man, I just _bought_ this new hat!” Dante seemed more annoyed than in pain, jumping to his feet and examining himself before Eli could even think of asking if he was alright. “On the other hand, I kinda _like_ the torn-up look on the duds.”

“Could you just _focus,_ for fuck’s sake?!” Eli screamed. “We narrowly escaped certain painful death there!”

“Hey! You’re not the one who lost a hat here!” Dante retorted. “And speak for yourself - I’m immortal, remember~?”

“Can we please just move?” Eli said exasperatedly. “The others are probably waiting for us, if they haven’t already started kicking the prick’s ass without us!”

Dante gave an exaggerated groan, but his frown was nothing but serious. “If the attempt to give us a surprise chemical bath was any hint, I get the feeling that Robo-ark isn’t making it any easier on the others…”

“Business as fuckin’ usual for the Azure Initiative’s number one hacker…” Eli mused. “He’s probably rigged traps on every corner; even _getting_ to him is gonna be a bigger headache than Marcell’s entire playlist.”

“Daaamn…” Dante whistled as he took point once more; to his mild relief, his beam katana hadn’t suffered any damage from the corrosive gas. “Hey Eli…been meaning to ask, but just what _happened_ between you guys and the man we’re after? I’m still new to this whole Crimson Society business…but what exactly is this guy’s beef?”

“It’s a loooooooong story…but in short, Quantum made a name for himself in our group…as a complete and utter _cheat_.” Eli sighed grimly as he recalled the cyborg Zoroark’s time in the Society. “There were times where we would play some online games and Quantum would hack into the system, rigging and modding the game for his benefit. Every victory was built on cheap tactics. One time…” He paused when he noticed a familiar cocky smile on Dante’s face. “…What? It was pretty serious shit!”

“I know, I know, but…I can’t help but admire that guy’s metaphorical balls,” Dante replied thoughtfully. “Using every trick in the book just for the sake of a win - sounds like I’d have some _real_ competition for once~”

“…Dante. That wasn’t the _only_ reason he got banned.” Eli spared a moment to roll his eyes before continuing. “Y’see, Quantum liked screwing with more than just _video games_; when he wasn’t hacking his way to victory, he was trying his damndest to hack into our _lives_. Asking a probing question here, setting up a ‘chance scenario’ there, all to find the secrets of our past that we made _very damn clear_ he had no right to know!” From the sudden venom in his words and the brief flash of red on his dreadlocks, it was clear that Quantum’s antics had hit a particular sore spot for the chinchilla. 

“So he was a doxxer, huh? Fuckin’ sicko…” Dante’s wry admiration had been replaced with an expression of disgust rivalling Eli’s. “You’re lucky I wasn’t there back then - If he even _thought_ about trying that stunt on me, I’d have gutted that fucker’s undercarriage faster than you could throw a Quick Ball!”

Eli smirked at Dante’s boast. “Believe me, we _all_ considered that at some point; it’s almost a pity that Quantum saw the writing on the wall and left without a fight… But here’s the thing that bothers me: he _helped_ Tsuneo when we tried to save Max from Sylvie…but why?”

“C’mon, Eli! With the shit Sylvie did, how could you _not_ want to see her fail?” Dante shrugged. “Besides, why dwell on that? The important thing is that Max was saved.”

“Yeah…but it just seems _off_,” Eli mused. “Unless he’s had the great-grandmother of all glitches since joining up with Weiss - not off the table, given the company - Quantum _never_ does anything for the hell of it; there’s _always_ some kinda bigger picture he’s looking at.”

“…Huh.” Dante took off what remained of his cap to scratch a rapidly-filling bald spot on his scalp. “Well, when you put it that way…that could mean that-” He paused both in speech and movement, nearly causing Eli to bump into him. “Put a bookmark in that, Eli; we’ve got more fun up ahead!”

“Well…you’ll have to take the lead..on the count of my injury here.” Eli stated. “Unless you're willing to carry me the way there~?”

Dante only glared at Eli, causing him to chuckle in return. The pair quickly made their way further down the halls, wary for more traps; soon, they came to a large metallic doorway. Beyond the door, they saw a room dominated by a massive supercomputer, with a lone figure standing at the console - their features were hard to discern, but the light of the monitors illuminated a shock of red fur…

“WAZ GOOD, POKEHACK!?” Dante tried to pounce, but the loud callout had gotten his target’s attention. A near-imperceptible turn and a brief glint of metal was all the warning he had before a gunshot rang out through the room - Dante twisted out of the way just in time to let the bullet hit the wall instead of him, causing him to stumble into the metal casing of the terminal behind the figure. 

“It would seem stealth isn’t your strong suit,” the figure snarked, watching Dante drop to the ground with an undignified “THUD”. As he regained his composure, the raccoon-dog saw that his target wasn’t Quantum after all, but an anthropomorphic feline with red fur, black clothes, and a pistol of a local make in his hand.

“Heh… Well, what can I say? Stealthy tactics ain’t my style,” Dante quipped. “But I’m in a hurry, so I’ll cut to the chase…to whom do I owe the pleasure of beating?”

The feline’s only response was the barest hint of a smirk as he readjusted his pistol’s aim, but further confrontation was cut short when Eli made his way inside, hands raised in a placating gesture as he moved towards his gung-ho friend and the mysterious stranger. 

“Easy, Dante…” he chided. “The fact that he’s willing to talk _without_ putting a bullet in your head or mine is plenty indication he’s not out to kill us here.” He chuckled wryly as he glanced at his bum leg. “It’d be too easy, if that were the case…”

“Brilliant power of perception there, dreads,” the feline responded. “If it were up to me, I would have put a bullet right in your cranium without a second thought; luckily for you, I can’t afford to waste the manpower right now.”

As the cat spoke, Eli gave him a quick once-over, searching for anything even vaguely familiar about him. After a moment, he mentally concluded that there was nothing about this stranger that even hinted at affiliation with the Azure Initiative, the Neo Empire, or any other group he’d seen or heard of on the Nexus.

“This guy…is he some kind of new blood for the Initiative? Or is he in a league all on his own...?” Eli’s thoughts were echoed by Dante’s question as the latter stood up, holding his head to stop the residual ringing from its impromptu meeting with the terminal’s metal casing.

“He’s a rogue element, that much I know…” Eli pondered aloud. “If he was on Initiative payroll, we’d already be dead. Though that raises the question of why you’re here now…”

In response, the feline merely gestured at the screen behind him. “Let’s just say that you lot aren’t the only ones with enough interest in this place to risk a bout of trespassing.” His small smirk returned as he glanced at the files displayed on the screen; he’d only gone through a few of them, but the data they held was more than promising. “I’m just here for these, really.”

Eli’s eyes widened. “Whoa…you managed to snatch that kind of confidential information from right under that hacker’s nose?” he asked incredulously.

“Doubtful,” the cat replied. “If the level of encryption on these files was any indication, they’re also probably rigged with a digital alarm that went off the moment I started cracking ‘em. He’s probably on his way as we speak; I was gonna wing it to get outta this one, but…” Despite his serious tone, his words had a strangely laid-back vibe, as if high-level espionage was a normal day at the office for him.

“So……is he friend? Foe? What’s the deal here?” Dante whispered, eyebrow raised as he looked at Eli with unusual caution. He looked back at the feline just in time to see him chuckle to himself, a twitch of his pointed ear indicating that he’d heard every word.

“I don’t make a habit of making friends, bandit.” The cat spoke with all the gravity of an office clerk greeting a co-worker as he pulled a flash drive from the console. “But if you lot want a piece of the Cyber-Ark, maybe we can work something out; I’d have to fight past him anyway without your help, so why work harder?”

“…Alright then, Red, I’ll bite.” Dante folded his arms with a frown. “What’s the catch? I doubt this kind of opportunity comes cheap.”

“Normally, yes, but…well…you’d honestly be gettin’ me out of a bind here.” The feline scratched the back of his head with one hand as he pocketed the flash drive with the other. “Ain’t often I get caught out like this, and since you aren’t denying that you’re here for that cyborg’s ass, it works out in your favor that my intrusion is bringing him right to us. You don’t have to keep traipsing through the veritable minefield of tricks and traps that he laid all over.”

“So, what you're saying is, you’ll guarantee us quicker access to that cheating bastard, trap-free?” Eli asked.

“I’m saying you two can _ambush_ him if we set this up right,” the cat replied, jerking a thumb at the lone camera in the corner of the room. “That camera up there’s been playing back a looped feed for about 10 minutes, so he should have no idea you’re in here. So go ahead and set yourselves up; I get the feeling he’s gonna be expecting you anyway.”

“Alright, but let’s get one thing straight, stranger.” Dante began, getting up the feline’s face. “I don’t trust you. He might, but _I don’t._ You do _anything_ to break our trust, and so help me - I’ll shove whatever gun you own up your ass and fire. Ya follow?”

Dante’s threat may as well have been heartfelt well-wishes for all they seemed to affect the feline. “Healthy mindset to keep there, bandit; I don’t trust _you_ either.” With a cold smirk, he backed away to let the others get into position, overturning a desk for cover as Eli and Dante positioned themselves on either side of the door frame, weapons at the ready.

_We only get one shot at this,_ Eli thought to himself, straining his ears for the first sign of life outside the room. _Better make the most of it…and _without_ blowing our cover, Dante!_ He briefly glanced at Dante, willing his gaze to convey his thoughts; luckily, the equally-determined look on the raccoon-dog’s face indicated that he wasn’t planning a repeat of his ill-fated “sneak attack”.

Suddenly, the sound of distant footsteps reached their ears, alternating between barely-audible padding and the distinct clank of metal-on-metal. Knowing only one being with that gait, Dante and Eli tensed and prepared to strike. Behind them, the feline stranger checked his weapon; fully loaded and ready to go, just as the figure reached the doorway…

…and another voice rang out from the other side of the hall.

“Quantum!!” It took all of Eli and Dante’s focus not to peek around the door at the sound of Max’s familiar voice. Judging by the lack of snark and clicking, it seemed that he was alone.

“Well… This might work in our favor,” Eli whispered to Dante. “Once you can see his back, we jump him…”

“I like the sound of that~!” Dante responded with a grin. “We just gotta bide our time. I don’t say this often, but…_don’t_ do anything I’d do, Max.”

**-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-**


	4. The Darkest Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Concurrent with Chapter 5) Clusterfuck has nearly taken out everyone in the Society, but Tsuneo may have one more trick up his sleeve...

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6.3A: The Darkest Shadows

_ **Last time on Tales of the Society...** _

_While Eli’s team began their infiltration of Quantum’s outpost, the Society members back at the mansion continued their cleanup in the aftermath of the Azure attack. However, they soon had to abandon their tasks in order to meet Weiss’s own “cleanup crew”: a monstrous chimera combining elements of the Crimson Council and Juliet! Despite its menace being slightly diluted when Brian dubbed it “Clusterfuck” (to Weiss’s furious dismay), the so-called Crimson Chimera proved to be a ferocious opponent, handily taking on the entire Society group that engaged it._

_Now, with most of the other members down for the count, it falls to Brian and Tsuneo to hold the line against the Azure Initiative’s latest beast. However, even Clusterfuck may be the least of Brian’s worries right now; a change has come over Tsuneo, and it doesn’t seem to be anything good. What is the meaning of this dark transformation…and will Brian now have to protect his friends and home from _two_ monsters instead of one?_

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Brian dropped to the ground mere heartbeats before Tsuneo made a feral pounce, colliding with the rapidly-approaching Clusterfuck hard enough to nearly knock it over. The revenant followed up with a series of savage blows that actually caused the massive beast to stagger, leaving Brian confused as he crept over to Irene, the only other Society member who wasn’t completely incapacitated at the moment.

“Um, Brian?” Irene spoke, slowly getting to her feet. “What’s wrong with Tsuneo? And are we gonna have to take him _and_ Clusterfuck on?”

“I really hope not. Last thing we need is for Scafe to tell us “I told you so” again, _if_ we get outta this one…” Brian groaned, before watching his friend go to town on the big beast. “…It seems like Tsuneo’s gone into “kill on sight” mode…maybe if we keep our distance, Clusterfuck here will be his only target. Can you make some portals to speed things up?”

In response, Irene touched her chest wound; to her relief, the pain had dulled significantly by now. “No problem - and while we’re at it, let’s get the others out of range. If we can barely defend ourselves against _one_ monstrosity, I’d rather they didn’t get caught up in that crossfire too.” She immediately created a portal to reach the more distant members, while Brian got up to begin collecting the ones closer by.

“Well, this is just _great_,” Irene groaned to herself as she formed eyes on her wings to watch the two monsters battling it out. “_This_ is what I’m- no. Focus on your current task. The last thing we need is-” She continued muttering to herself as she picked up B.Nana and Becky before portaling back to where Scafe had impacted the wall of the mansion.

“Good work, Irene.” Brian dragged Emily over to the others before surveying their conditions. “They’re pretty beat-up, but I think they’ll recover with a bit of care.”

“_Assuming there’s anything left of _anything_ by then,_” Zeus added, manifesting eyes on Brian’s upper spider legs to eye the continued brawl between the Chimera and Tsuneo.

“Wonderful; just fucking _perfect,_” Irene snarled, sitting down and wrapping her arms around her knees. “As if getting our base attacked _once_ wasn’t bad enough, this _literal_ clusterfuck had to show up to finish the job; and _then_ one of our own basically turned into a berserker! Which one of us kept kicking kittens in a past life?” As she spoke, heart-shaped markings briefly appeared on her wings before fading back to white.

“Chin up, Irene,” Brian said, patting the pyromancer on the back with a spider leg as he got to work with his pencil. “Knowing Tsuneo, even _that’s_ part of his plan; we just need to be at the ready when and if it all goes sideways. Now take this Medkit here and get to work.” He tossed her a hand-drawn Medkit to use on their downed allies before drawing up a second one to use himself.

“…What reality are you in, because it’s _already_ gone sideways. Second, just because I had family members who were doctors and nurses does not-mean-I-am-capable-ofbeingone_mydamnself!_” Irene’s words became faster and higher-pitched with every syllable until she was screaming a line of near-gibberish; fortunately, neither of the duelling monsters noticed over the ferocity of their battle.

“First Aid, Irene, simple… Just use the painkillers there, align the bones if they broke…” As Brian helped Irene through a crash course of First Aid, Tsuneo and the Chimera continued trading blows; despite fighting furiously for a solid minute, neither showed any sign of backing down. Finally, the Chimera jumped back to draw its katana; in response, Tsuneo created his Violent Claws. This time, however, they formed from unstable black Ether that enveloped his entire hands, appearing more like the gnarled talons of a feral predator.

“**Come on, big guy!! Show me how you SCREAM!!!**” Tsuneo’s voice, normally somewhat strained and raspy without his cipher, was a terrifyingly aggressive snarl with an audibly beastly distortion, as if something decidedly inhuman was speaking in tandem with him. His arms seemed to disappear into black streaks as he unleashed a frenzied assault, but the greater length of the Chimera’s blade allowed it to avoid every blow…or so it seemed. One swipe managed to graze the monster’s chest, leaving a hairline black scratch. Despite the superficial blow, the beast hissed painfully as the barest wisps of shadowy miasma began emitting from the mark.

“What in the Nine…?” Having finished bandaging B.Nana’s scorched peel, Irene chanced a glance at the battle behind her. “Since when could he do _that?_”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Brian said warily, applying a salve to Becky’s laser burns before drawing up a crowbar to begin extricating Scafe from the wall. “I’ve known Tsuneo quite a while, and he’s never even _hinted_ that he could do something like this…but if it means he’s got an ace up his non-existent sleeves, I’m not about to argue.” 

The spider-bunny glanced behind himself just in time to see Tsuneo creating a new weapon: a black scythe with a blade resembling the reverse edge of his signature Reaper Blade. Despite his larger weapon and his numerous injuries, he only seemed to be getting faster and more relentless; whatever had came over him made him much more tenacious. The Chimera growled warily, uncertain on how to fight the transformed zombie; his attacks seemed to pass right through its blade, inflicting burning pain but leaving no marks beyond an ever-growing amount of black miasma from the scratch on its chest.

Irene’s face paled as she looked down at the ground, trying to avoid crying. “That…this is what I’ve fallen for? Aren’t I certainly the best at choosing them…” She quietly muttered to herself before trying to refocus on tending to Becky, with Brian now putting all his effort into freeing Scafe.

With its back to the wall, the Chimera unleashed a loud screech as it flew backwards, bombarding Tsuneo with countless lasers to get some distance. Once it was several feet away, it raised its blade…and turned it on itself, wedging it deeply through the midsection before prying itself apart and letting its legs fall free while its upper torso floated independently.

“Oh _gods!_” Irene’s wings flickered green as her hand went to her mouth. “There are less gory ways to commit suicide!”

“_No…I don’t think it’s killing itself…_” Zeus said warily. “_If that thing’s got my DNA along with Brian’s…it might have my Parasitic abilities too._”

“Which means…ooooh, fuck.” Brian cringed as he finally pulled Scafe free of the crater in the wall. “Irene, you _miiiiight_ wanna look away and bust out the music player, ‘cause you ain’t seen _gory_ yet…”

Deciding to take Brian at his word, Irene quickly pulled out her earbuds and refocused on patching up a battered Emily. Sure enough, the Chimera’s body began to mutate all over, its skin splitting as its muscles hardened and expanded. Hostile-purple veins overtook its synthetic arm and its innards erupted from its severed waist as its legs began to bolt for Tsuneo, still spurting blood from their open wound.

“**How considerate of you to save me some of the trouble of _cutting you to pieces._**” Tsuneo chuckled madly as he ran right past the legs, catching them with the scythe blade. He ducked under the retaliatory roundhouse before throwing the Scythe at the floating torso, which simply bobbed over the attack as its transformation continued. The exposed viscera swelled and wrapped around itself, forming a grisly tail that quickly sprouted armor plating and jagged bone spikes. Clusterfuck’s own eyes turned the same shade of eerie purple as its new veins before it gave a dreadfully amplified roar of its own at its approaching opponent.

“**Ah, all dolled up for your last dance? Good; show me what that’ll mean in the end!!!**” Far from being intimidated or disgusted, Tsuneo sounded outright excited by the prospect as he broke into a sprint at the newly transformed Chimera, a large black zweihander forming in his right hand as he closed the distance. In response, the beast cloaked its katana in a fierce purple aura of energy; similar power enveloped its right arm, forming eerie blades on its bony fingers.

“**COME ON!!!**” Tsuneo ended up dashing right through the floating beast, creating a searing black mark directly over its existing scratch wound as he wheeled about in the air to land behind it. The black smoke falling from the wound intensified, but it only seemed to make the Chimera even angrier as it whirled around to slash at the dark zombie with its blade. Tsuneo nimbly dodged the slash, but Clusterfuck followed up by stabbing its right arm into the ground, creating a large explosion that was equal parts dust, debris, and dark energy.

“DUCK!” Brian yelled, hoping that Irene could hear him even as he scrawled a hasty wall to block the incoming dust cloud. Fortunately, Irene was on the same page; her side of the impromptu “medical ward” was suddenly surrounded by portals, which harmlessly absorbed the cloud and released it on the other side of her.

“Gods…” she whimpered to herself as she finished tending to Emily. After glancing around to see Brian putting a last ice pack on Scafe’s head, she straightened up with Curie at the ready. “Brian, they’re all patched up now. Watch over them; I’m going in.”

“No prob- wait, hang on!” Brian froze mid-nod as he realized what Irene just said. “Irene, are you _seriously_ going to try and get in the middle of all that??”

“_You’re going to get utterly destroyed in all that nonsense!_” Zeus yelled.

Irene shrugged. “And if it means no one else gets hurt because of me…so be it.” Her wings flashed blue for an instant before returning to white, but with a few specks of red tinting the edges. “But I’d rather go down trying to fight than standing by, unable to do a damn thing.” Before Brian could raise an objection, she took to the skies with her shotgun in hand, watching for her opportunity as the dust began to settle.

At the epicenter of the explosion, Tsuneo looked much worse for wear; his body was scorched, bleeding, and perforated with debris in several places. However, not even this seemed to faze him, the black clouds on the ground growing ever bigger by the second. The Chimera gave a growl of triumph after seeing the damage it did, but its fanged smile vanished when its target gave a scoff.

“**You mindless fucking _animal_…you call THAT an attack?! Pathetic…_THIS_ IS HOW IT’S DONE!!!**” With an outright demonic roar, Tsuneo drove his large blade into the ground, sending a visible pulse through the clouds of miasma around him. Clusterfuck had just enough time to cock its head in confusion before countless pitch-black blades erupted from the clouds beneath it, impaling it from all sides like a pincushion. A screech of utter agony erupted from the Chimera’s throat as blackness hemorrhaged from each “wound.” Seeing her opportunity, Irene swooped as close as she dared to unload her two shots into the Beast’s exposed chest, leaving a ragged wound amidst the criss-crossing shadow blades.

“**Now…you shall _sate_ the shadows’ hunger.**” Taking no notice of the butterfly-winged woman darting away from his prey, Tsuneo ripped his blade from the ground and held it over his head. The vapors around him surged into the sword, making it grow significantly larger and more unstable-looking; by the end of it, it looked more like an abyssal flame stuck to a sword hilt. Despite the chaos in his hands, Tsuneo’s black gaze showed nothing but lethal precision as he intoned his final words to the battered Chimera.

“**You. Are. BROKEN.**”

With that, Tsuneo brought down his blade in a mighty swing, crushing the Crimson Chimera underneath it. Irene twisted in midair to avoid being caught by the swing as well, biting back a cry as her right arm was grazed by the dark Ether. Beneath the unholy inferno, Clusterfuck’s howls of utter agony and impotent fury slowly diminished to nothing; when the only sound to be heard was the soft whisper of settling dust, the blade collapsed into miasma once more, revealing the Azure Initiative’s hybrid monster lying in a small crater. Its body was surprisingly intact, save for its blown-open chest, but its eyes were dark and lifeless.

“**And so another soul is destroyed…**” The hiss that escaped Tsuneo’s mouth could almost be mistaken as contemplative, were it not for the barely-restrained bloodlust still bubbling beneath its calm tone. “**Which of these fools will be the next to share its fate…?**”

“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” Irene hissed, grasping her “burned” arm as she landed several feet behind the revenant. “Tsuneo, what in the Nine happened to you...”

As if on cue, the NeverDead turned to face the woman, his body slouched heavily as a few stray wisps of dark Ether escaped his many wounds. He looked in no condition to fight, but his eyes remained fixed on Irene; the look of a lion spotting a wounded gazelle.

“Irene!” Unable to stand by any longer, Brian ran to the pyromancer’s side, breathless from the spectacle and concern in equal measure. “Tsuneo, please calm down!! You’ve won!” 

“**Hah…begging for your lives will not save you.**” The sinister undertone to Tsuneo’s voice seemed to become more prominent as he shambled towards them, his injured state doing nothing to dampen the menace radiating from him. “**There can be no mercy…from _darkness incarnate._**”

“You fucking brick wall.” Irene donned her best glare before taking a few determined steps forward. “If you’re gonna hurt _anyone_ here, it should be me. And it damn well better be _as yourself._” Before Brian could stop her, she closed the distance between herself and Tsuneo to grab him in a hug.

“IRENE!!!” Brian’s cry came a bit late as the black Ether lanced through Irene’s stomach, a searing pain she found indescribable. Suddenly, in an almost reflexive motion, Tsuneo pushed her away, letting the blackness fall to the ground in a billowing cloud.

“I _said…_” Ignoring the pain, Irene opened two portals, one below Tsuneo and one right next to her. “The only one…dying here…is me. Now face me, Tsuneo.” She thrust her uninjured hand through the portal, seizing the zombie’s ankle.

“**Very well, foolish girl; I will…??**” Tsuneo trailed off as his movements visibly slowed; soon, he was frozen in place. “**Rrrrgh...this whelp’s…willpower is…re..turn..ing…**” He dropped to one knee, chuckling darkly as his entire body seemed to twitch and spasm.

Brian’s eyes widened as he recognized the events playing out before him. _Zeus?_ he asked his Parasite mentally. _Is this…what I think it is?_

_Looks like it,_ Zeus responded. _Guess you and Emily aren’t the only Society members with an “inner monster”…_

“Tsuneo??” Brian inched closer to see what was going on past Irene. He promptly regretted his decision when a large black blade erupted from the miasma on the ground, punching through Tsuneo’s chest and protruding through his back. The spider-bunny promptly gave a high-pitched cry of “SHIT!!” before falling on his rear and scuttling backwards.

“**Hope...you…_rot_...v-vessel…**” The revenant slumped as the Ether reddened and dispersed, exploding the blade in Tsuneo’s chest like a grenade. The resultant scream of pain was one that was burned into Irene’s memory from the week prior; moreover, it was a voice Brian could recognize from a mile away as his best friend.

“Oh gods, no.” Irene pulled Tsuneo into her arms, her wings turning deep blue as she finally let her tears flow freely. “Please, say something. _Please._”

“Ghhhh…” Although the undead warrior was unable to speak through his severe internal bleeding, the trembling hand that grabbed Irene’s arm told her that he was aware…and in extremely serious pain for once in his unlife. This reaction made Sylvie’s magic torture look like a stove burn by comparison.

“B-Brian…” Irene turned to regard the spider-bunny from the corner of her eye, only to find him standing in a small pile of scrawled Medkits, with even more coming into existence as fast as his drawing arm could move. “Let’s… Let’s get him and the others inside...” She finally composed herself enough to drop the portal at her feet, bringing the severely wounded Tsuneo back to the base.

“Huh?” Brian turned just in time to see the tip of Irene’s ponytail vanishing through the portal. “...Oh yeah, right! Good idea!” Hastily revising his latest medkit-in-progress into a bucket, he gathered up the other kits and followed her through the portal to begin a new kind of cleanup.

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After a few minutes of intense scrawling, the lobby of the Society base had been converted into a trauma ward, with each downed member bedded and trying to rest off their wounds. Between Brian putting the final touches on the replacement generator, Irene finishing her sweep of the base for any more explosives in the important areas, and both of them setting up their friends as best they could, they were utterly exhausted by the time they met up in the lobby and collapsed on the floor.

“There…There we go.” Brian gave a heavy sigh as he dropped his pencil and tried to squeeze some feeling back into his fingers. “Generator’s installed…but I can’t turn it on ‘til Eli’s team gets home from their debug outing…”

“No more bombs…anywhere we can’t afford…them being…” Irene continued, dusting off her arm with a sigh of her own. “And everyone…else is recovering now… All we can do…is wait…”

“_Normally, I’d quip about how this is my_ favorite _fucking part…but right now, I think I’ll _enjoy_ the break,_” Zeus groaned. “_If the Azures have any _more_ genetic abominations waiting in the wings, I’m gonna carve an entire _maple tree_ of scars on that fucker Weiss’s whole smug-ass body…_”

The absurd threat brought weak smiles to Brian and Irene’s faces. “Heh… Speaking of that abomination…what happened to Tsuneo?” the former asked. “He _definitely_ wasn’t himself there…And maybe it was just me, but it seemed like there was someone else working in there. Last I checked, he didn’t have any Hostile Parasites hanging out in his heart…”

“_Your guess is as good as mine, Brian,_” Zeus replied. “_It definitely _looks_ like what you went through when I first infected you…but I don’t think it’s biological in any sense. That power he summoned…the way he attacked Clusterfuck…it’s almost like he was…_”

“…Attacking his very life essence?” Irene interrupted, holding her stomach with the arm that Tsuneo had grazed with his final attack to Clusterfuck; even now, there was a dull ache in both areas. “Just look at my arm. It _feels_ like I’m bleeding out, but I have no wounds to show for it… If I had to guess, I’d say he’s got some kind of _literal_ inner demon in his mind, and it’s trying to break his will so it can control his body.” _Not like I haven’t been _there_ before,_ she added mentally.

“Hm… Guess there’s another common point for us.” Brian chuckled a little, trying to combat the heavy tension with a light tone. “Well, whatever that thing was, he still fought it and won with our help…but he still got the worst of all that battle… The others are recovering just fine, but he’ll be down for a long, _long_ while with wounds like that…”

“No kidding. It’s amazing he’s even still _with_ us after a fight like that.” Irene shook her head to keep the tears at bay; her wings, however, betrayed her emotions to Brian.

“…Irene…you _do_ remember his nickname here, right?” The spider-bunny smirked at Irene as she looked at him. “Nothing’s going to keep my best friend down. _Nothing._” She could hear the sincerity in his voice; he believed that as deeply as any other written truth out there. Before she could reply, however, the silence was broken by the sound of hoofbeats and flapping wings coming down the stairs.

“Ahem…I can see that you two are quite _clocked out,_ but if I may-” Tim’s query was promptly lost amid the sound of Tavo all but leaping down the rest of the stairway to look around the lobby in utter bewilderment.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF SLAYER’S BLUE BALLS **HAPPENED HERE?!**” he bellowed, rounding on his equally-stunned beasts. “Alright, which one of you four got into trouble while I was out?!”

After checking to make sure their ears were still functional, Irene and Brian chuckled sheepishly to each other and beckoned the newcomers to sit down. “Let’s just say we had to deal with a total _clusterfuck_ of a problem and go from there…” Irene began.

**-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, chapter where Irene proves her moniker as the Lady of Insanity isn't just full of hot air. That, or she's borderline-suicidal.


	5. Detection and Defection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eli's team is determined to put an end to Quantum's wireless hacking of their base.

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6.3B: Detection and Defection

_ **Last time on Tales of the Society...** _

_To put a stop to Quantum’s wireless sabotage of the Crimson HQ, Eli, Max, Zuula, Juliet, and Dante infiltrated the cyber-Zoroark’s base deep in the mountains. Of course, Quantum was more than prepared for trespassers; the traps saturating his lair quickly separated Dante and Eli from their friends while injuring the chinchilla’s leg. Recognizing their vulnerability, the duo pressed on, eventually finding the last thing either of them expected…_

_…They weren’t the only ones paying Quantum an unexpected visit. Who is the mysterious red cat-man digging up Quantum’s encrypted files? Where did he come from, what’s he really up to, and whose side is he really on?_

_For now, Eli and Dante have shelved these questions, because this wild card has given them a perfect opportunity to finally face Quantum man-to-mon. However, the Azure Initiative’s resident saboteur is perfectly capable of defending himself without tricks and traps; our heroes will need every ounce of their strength to take him offline… _

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“Quantum!!”

The cyborg Zoroark paused mid-step at the familiar yell, but did not turn around. “Max,” he droned. “You survived.” Despite his laconic words, both he and his assailant knew that he was not referring to the defenses of his base.

“You’re _damn right_ I did.” Max’s voice was level, but the determined fury behind it was almost palpable. “I wasn’t able to pay her back in kind, but _you’ll_ make a fine substitute target for some well-deserved venting!”

“For the record, I did not condone Ms. Prower’s actions,” Quantum responded.

“Yet you chose not to stop her?!”

“Tipping off your fellow Councilmen to your whereabouts and sabotaging the security locks was betrayal enough, I think.” If not for his stoic nature, Quantum might’ve shrugged. “Lord Weiss would have been displeased if I had taken further action against Ms. Prower, especially on your behalf.”

“Fair enough…” Max conceded, “...but that doesn’t excuse your current actions.” His hands tightened on the hilt of his sword as he redoubled his glare at Quantum. “Once an Azure, always an Azure, am I right?”

“…You are correct.” Quantum turned his head just enough to show the assassin the barest glint of an unnatural green eye. “I have my orders; destroy the Crimson Society and secure Lord Weiss’s dominion over the Nexus. It is only logical that-”

“_Logic._” Max interjected with a scoff. “You always loved to talk about ‘logic,’ Quantum, but I don’t think you know what that means.” He shifted his stance just enough to keep his foe on edge, hoping to preempt a literal interpretation of his accusation. “Logic requires _principles_, Quantum; taking what you know and interpreting it in a _reasonable_ way! You have the knowledge part down, but your principles and reasons are nothing but _bullshit!_”

On the other side of the doorway, Dante blinked in surprise at Max’s sudden burst of emotion. _Wow…ol’ Mecha-Darkie must’ve pissed Max off_ real _good if he’s getting this fired up…_ he thought to himself.

In response to Max’s accusation, Quantum’s eyes narrowed. “…_Bullshit,_” he parroted blandly. “You have no obligation to do so, Max, but if you would humor me…please elaborate on that, for posterity.”

The masked bear shook his head as much as he dared, not trusting his target to attack the moment he broke eye contact. “You don’t see it, do you?” he said incredulously. “All that time spent hacking games and lives alike, bending the rules until they snap in two…and it never _once_ occurred to you that those rules exist for a _reason!_” It took every ounce of his self-control and common sense not to attack Quantum then and there. “What _principles_ are there in winning a game where you hold all the cards? What _reasons_ justify probing the darkest corners of our histories, seeking out memories we’d rather keep buried? What **logical** being would align with a Grade-S asshole like Weiss, blindly serving his every delusional whim?!”

In the wake of Max’s rant, the silence seemed deafening. Quantum stood in the doorway in silence - long enough that one could assume that his systems had crashed - but he finally turned his head a degree or two further to better regard Max as he gave his answer.

“One that is _indebted_ to him.”

“You _can’t_ be serious…” Max rolled his eyes behind his mask. “This is _Weiss_ we’re talking about! Asshole Supreme; self-proclaimed ‘Biggest Man on the Nexus;’ wannabe conqueror of the entire damn planet! What could he possibly offer you that-”

“He gave me a new lease on life.” Quantum’s unreadable expression sharply contrasted the way that Max nearly dropped his sword in shock.

“W…_what?_” Max was too shocked to even remember his earlier anger as Quantum’s gaze became distant.

“Before I was Weiss’s saboteur… I was just a Pokémon that he raised…all on his own. He saved me from harm’s way when I was just a Zorua…”

“And…who did he save you from…?” Max ventured.

For the briefest instant, Quantum’s eye showed open hatred. “…The accursed army of his older sibling,” he answered.

“Nesmon…of course.” Max nodded grimly as he put the pieces together. “The so-called ‘deity’ of the Neo Empire experimented on you…tried to mold you into one of his mindless drones.”

“Nesmon has one goal in life: to expand his army in ways unimaginable,” Quantum explained. “He wanted a force that could topple Heaven and Hell combined; thus, he sought out soldiers from every corner of the Nexus. My world chunk quickly caught his eye; with the power of Pokémon on their side, the Neo Army’s strength would increase tenfold…a significantly conservative estimate, in my opinion.” The barest hint of pride surfaced in his voice before he continued. “Not only Legendaries, either…he wanted anything with even a hint of potential. I was his third attempt.”

“Third…? What happened to the other two?” Even as he asked, Max had a feeling that he already knew the gruesome answer.

Quantum’s voice became an emotionless buzz; a sign that he was reciting directly from his databanks. “Attempt No.1: a Lucario, chosen for its species’s natural hardiness. Its body rejected the cybernetic implants, and it died of total organ failure. Attempt No.2: a Lugia, captured by unknown means. The physical augmentation was successful, but the mental conditioning failed utterly; it turned on its captors and destroyed the research facility. N.E.D. himself terminated it before it could do any further damage.”

“Naturally…this is what happens when you play God.” Max shook his head at the recordings, only to pause when he remembered something Quantum said earlier. “…Wait. You said he experimented on you when you were a _Zorua?!_ Are you saying he was cold enough to experiment on weaker, underdeveloped Pokemon?!”

“Nesmon was…unfettered,” Quantum replied simply. “Age, species, evolutionary level…all was irrelevant. If you held potential, he would do everything necessary to unleash it…or destroy you in the process.”

“I…see.” Max forced down a surge of renewed hatred for the Neo Empire. “But what about your enhancements? Even with his empire’s technology, Nesmon couldn’t have made cybernetics that grew with you when you evolved…”

“I was still in the early phase of augmentation when Weiss intervened,” Quantum replied. “Nesmon’s scientists had dissected me piecemeal, injecting bio-augments and manipulating my genes to accelerate my evolution and increase my compatibility with cybernetics. After rescuing me, Weiss used extensive bandages and stitches to keep my body together; he even used his electric powers as a means to jumpstart my heart when it failed from trauma. My condition stabilized after I evolved, but I was still severely crippled; as such, Weiss took the liberty to…_fix_ me.” He gestured with his mechanical arm for emphasis.

“So Weiss was the one who gave you those enhancements…huh.” Max rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Never pegged him for a techhead…but even if he played hero and saved you, do you condone the horrendous shit he has done in the past?!”

“Do pets condone their owners for murder?” Quantum posited back to Max, immediately sussing out his argument. “I admit that he is not the same man he once was…but I would not be able to judge him if not for his help. _That_ is my logic, Max. I owe my life to Weiss; it effectively belongs to him. Even as he is now, I **must** repay my debt to him.”

“What will it take for you to understand?!” Max shouted, his anger returning in full force. “Do you have to be stabbed in the back by him before the truth comes through your metal-plated skull?!”

“All debts must be repaid,” Quantum replied with a hint of irritated insistence. “It is the directive I _choose_ to follow; a life for a life.”

“And what of the _others?!_” Max all but roared, his patience at its limit. “What of everyone who’s been made to suffer at the Initiative’s hands? Marcell’s brainwashed ‘groupies’? The innocent victims of Sylvie’s experiments? All the casualties of the very Neo Empire your master once saved you from? Are _their_ lives worth yours, Quantum?! Does your _logic_ account for what will happen should Weiss actually manage to-”

“**ENOUGH!**” Quantum barked the word with uncharacteristic intensity as he turned to face Max fully, his expression nothing short of murderous. Dante and Eli prepared to spring, but a large wall of hard light blocked the doorway - fortunately, they stopped themselves before either Quantum or Max spotted them behind the frame. “It is not your place to judge the man who saved my life! Even if that man is dead now, I owe my existence to him, and I will do _anything_ if there is the slightest chance to bring him back! If that means that the entire Nexus must fall at his feet…then **so be it!**”

Max had little time to react as Quantum charged, crossing the hallway in an instant. He tried raised his blade to counter the attack, but Quantum’s metal fist got around his swing; a brutal Sucker Punch that sent Max into another luminous wall that sprang up at his back.

“Grrr…” Although taken aback by the sudden shift in Quantum’s demeanor, Max quickly jumped back to his feet, ready to fight. “So, that’s your final decision then? Very well…but know this, Quantum. You _chose_ this life! You made your decision! And like any decision…YOU’LL HAVE TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!”

Quantum’s only response was a near-feral snarl, computer code and dark energy swirling around his claws as Max raised his blade once more. As the one-on-one battle resumed, Dante and Eli shook their heads incredulously from the other side of the barrier.

“_Perfect._ Max is trapped now - we can’t support from here!” Eli groaned at this development as the feline made his way to the console again.

“Ey!” Dante yelled, still not trusting the strange gunman. “What’re you doin’ there?”

“Seeing if I can use those traps in there against him,” the cat replied. “This central terminal does have a lot of access, so maybe I can break down that wall.” He nodded to himself as his fingers danced across the console, punching in lines of code at dizzying speeds.

“Fine, fine…” Eli waved offhandedly to rein in Dante as an idea started to bloom. “While you’re in there, think you can find a way to kill the Comms Array? That _was_ our original objective - the Robo-Ark’s been hacking into our pad, so we came here to shut him down. Can’t hack shit from far away without the Comms Array.”

“I’ll see what I can do once I break those walls. One of you cover me in case Tall, Dark and Metal remembers why he came down here.” The feline nodded as he input a command. Outside the room, Max noticed the floor going haywire underfoot; various electrical tiles and explosive traps appeared in flashes of digitized light.

“What the bloody hell!?” The assassin was on the defensive, mostly trying to avoid being blown up. He raised several earthen pillars to give himself some safe spots to stand as he surveyed the situation. “Damn you and your tricks, Quantum!”

Quantum only answered by kicking a ball of green code off a nearby wall, bouncing it sideways in an attempt to knock Max off his pedestal. The bear dodged easily enough, but Quantum shot the ball with a beam from his mechanical arm, blowing up the projectile to send Max flying towards him; he then jumped back to reveal several large mines right in Max’s flight path.

“None of that!!” Max stuck his blade into the ground, arresting his movement and shunting the mines into the wall between them and his backup. Hearing the explosions and the sound of hard light fading away, Dante and Eli returned to their previous positions, ready to make Quantum’s life even harder if he was brought closer.

“Well, that’s done…now for your Comm Array problem…” The cat focused intently on searching through the base’s protocols as Max landed back on his feet, noting that most of the tile traps were gone by now.

“Right then… Looks like you’re running out of tricks, Quantum.” The smug taunt had barely left Max’s mouth before Quantum punched the nearest wall with the side of his fist, sending a shower of sparks at the assassin. Max had to dodge out of the way, which opened him up to a wild overhead haymaker that sent him flying back to Dante and Eli. “…Oh…there you chaps are.” he muttered in a daze.

“Well, you look like you could use a hand. Tag in?” With a wry chuckle, Dante leapt around the corner to continue the fight with Quantum, beam katana already active as he went on the offensive. This earned him several shocks from the many traps still littering the room, but the raccoon-dog’s only reaction was a wild laugh interspersed with brief grunts of pain.

“Gh! C’mon, amp up the voltage! I could - ergh! - use these things as bug zappers, Zoro-Tron!” Dante’s lightning-scorched fur was already healing by the time he swung his beam katana at Quantum. The laser blade met a barrier of code that sprung to life around the cyborg Pokémon, but Dante merely pressed his attack, even incorporating slashes into the evasive maneuvers he used to dodge Quantum’s retaliatory blasts and swipes.

Meanwhile, Eli helped Max to his feet as the latter heaved a sigh. “Bugger all…Quantum’s still just a bit too smart. I was planning to have the girls pull off a surprise attack from the other direction, but he blocked that way too…”

“Well, looks like he found us both out.” Eli scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Still, that means we’ve caught back up to each other, so the gang’s all here… Oh, and the cat’s gonna help us outta this one; he’s lookin’ for a way to sabotage the Comms Array.” He thumbed back to the feline still tapping away at the keyboard

“You sure we can-” Max was immediately cut off by the feline as he raised a finger to interrupt.

“No, I don’t trust you either, but ‘Enemy of my Enemy’ is in full effect right now. At the very least, I’ll scratch your back as long as you don’t let Cybermon there rake mine.” He had returned to his task before he even caught Max’s understanding nod. Back outside, Quantum was slowly but surely losing ground in the face of Dante’s relentless offense.

“It appears I may have underestimated your combat capabilities; your skill is prodigious, to say the least.” Quantum’s analysis did nothing to hinder his ability to dodge around each slash. “However, you telegraph your attacks extensively, and waste time with dramatic flourishes. I can predict your moves as if-” He cut himself off as a fake-out into a wide two-hand swing forced him to lean back fully. “-I could read your mind.” Were it not for his usual monotone, he might’ve sounded embarrassed by the close call.

“Yeah…sorry ‘bout that.” Dante mock-shrugged in between sidestepping another Cypher Blast. “My style’s not meant to confuse, just _aggress._” A cheshire grin crossed his lips as Quantum backed into the hard-light wall on the opposite side of the room. “And I’d say I’ve just rushed you down into a corner~” He went for a helmsplitter cut, but Quantum raised a hard light block around Dante’s body, followed by a barrage of code strings resembling glowing green machine gun fire.

“_Quantum Program_ initiated. And. **Terminated.**” The cybernetic Pokémon slammed his metal fist through the summoned block, sending Dante back to the other side of the room, severely battered by the high-intensity attack.

“…Well, shit…” Eli winced as Dante weakly tried to get up; his wounds were mending, but he’d clearly be out for a while yet. “Max, you can’t go back in on that…and the girls are on the other side of the wall, right?”

Max’s nod of confirmation turned into a blink of surprise when he saw Eli starting out the door. “Wait a minute…you’re going in? Your leg-”

“-is gonna be a bitch, I know.” Eli gave his signature cocky grin as he extended his staff. “…But I’ve managed worse.” With that, he stepped out to face Quantum, who immediately focused on his injured leg.

“…It appears that my traps got the better of you on the way here.” The Zoroark afforded himself a bemused smirk as several hard light pillars rose between him and the chinchilla to get in his way. “You realize that your mobility - your greatest asset in a fight - has been severely hampered, yet you stand against me, despite your…_crippled_ chances of survival?”

“Leave the puns to the shitlords, scrap heap.” With that, Eli launched into motion - rather than breaking into a run, he used his good leg to _jump_ long distances forward. The pillars Quantum raised to obstruct his path actually helped his advance, providing corners to grab, walls to hop from, and cover from the sparks, balls and blasts his opponent tried to send his way. Despite having only one leg to stand on, the chinchilla was still a surprisingly difficult target for Quantum’s barrage of projectiles.

“Interesting…you’ve never even alluded to mobility like this. I see that your ability isn’t limited to increased movement speed or enhanced reaction time.” Quantum sounded very slightly impressed as Eli continued to close in despite the hail of attacks.

“Got it in one, Quantum!” the Councilman crowed. “Once you understand kinetic force, _speed_ can suddenly translate to _strength!_” He kicked off of a pillar to clear over another rain of sparks before hop-tackling into Quantum to bash him back into the wall. Another boosted jump sent him flying at the cyborg, winding up for a knockout blow…but unfortunately, Quantum had one more trick up his sleeve.

“**Blackout.**” With that simple word, the Zoroark dropped to the floor and struck it with both arms, causing the power to go out across the building. Briefly caught off-guard by the sudden darkness, Eli was hit with a Night Daze that sent him flying off _behind_ Quantum. Although he broke the worst of the fall with a timely roll, the empowered wave did a number on him; back in the control room, the cat wasn’t having much better luck.

“_Dammit!_” The mysterious feline cursed as he slammed both fists on the now-defunct keyboard. “Motherfucker just tripped the power; my work on the Comms Array just got undone…” He fumed for a second longer before straightening up and turning towards a door in another side of the room, beckoning Max to follow him. “Fine then; we’ll do it the old-fashioned way. C’mon, big guy - we’re about to do some _Percussive Maintenance_ on this guy’s toys.”

Even as he obeyed the cat’s command, Max briefly glanced back to the impromptu battlefield. “What about Eli?” he asked. “We can’t just leave him to get torn up by Quantum, can we?”

“Your friends are waiting in the wings, right? They won’t miss us, and it’s more important we complete your mission.” As they left, Quantum picked up the incapacitated Eli, chuckling darkly.

“A commendable effort, but…it proved insufficient.” Quantum drew back his mechanical arm, claws agleam and ready to finish the chinchilla, but before he could strike, a pair of familiar white tentacles snared his wrist.

“Fighting in the dark, are we? It seems you’re eager to meet your fate~” The sick, amused clicking in that voice prompted Quantum to duck; a split second later, a few more tentacles stabbed through the air where his back had been. He slashed at the tentacles binding his metal arm with his natural claws, forcing his captor to release his limb; turning to face her, he could just barely make out Zuula’s silhouette, her single eye darting about in predatory anticipation.

“One of the Society’s new additions, I presume. In the absence of myself and Mr. Sunika, I wondered if they would acquire a low-light specialist…in a moment, they will need a new one.” With that offhanded threat, Quantum charged at Zuula, beginning a fierce brawl in the dark. Meanwhile, Eli felt himself being dragged away, out of sight of the combatants; when she glimpsed this, Zuula’s grin widened even further.

_That’s one problem out of the way,_ she thought. _Now all that remains is to force my prey’s hand~_ Her barrage of tentacle attacks and wild swings were met with slashes and punches from Quantum; although her shell was taking a beating, its added defense allowed her to keep her offensive momentum. “Hehehe… You’re quite the persistent prey…but can that augmented intellect unravel _this_ conundrum?”

Quantum’s eyes narrowed as what little trace of Zuula he could see vanished into the shadows. _A tactical withdrawal, to catch her breath before resuming her attack…or perhaps a feint to facilitate an ambush?_ Even as his cyborg brain reviewed the probabilities of each scenario, he knew one thing for certain; every second that Zuula remained out of sight tipped the scales further in her favor.

“Impressive…” he mused aloud. “You’ve actually forced me into a stalemate. Either I reactivate the lights, so your last friend can make a surprise attack…or I continue fighting you in the dark, where you have a clear advantage. For a beast of the pit, you’re rather clever…but there is a critical flaw in your strategy.” He cocked his ears, searching for any sign of Zuula’s position, but her low, clicking laughter seemed to come from every direction. “Your constructed dilemma assumes that your friend can successfully ambush me…but I know _precisely_ what to expect.” He slammed the ground to reactivate the lights, immediately turning to regard what he thought would be Juliet’s blade…and finding only a massive laser emitter right in front of his face.

“…Well,” he muttered in monotone surprise. “I retract my previous statement.”

As a powerful laser blast sent Quantum flying down the long hall, Eli and Juliet peered out from behind the emitter, having used it for cover. “Great job, Zuula. You doin’ alright, Eli?” Juliet asked, watching the chinchilla adjust his staff to act as a makeshift crutch. “Max gave us the opportunity to set up; even told us about Quantum’s ace in the hole that would’ve rendered this thing useless…but by god, we did it.”

“Heh… Didn’t expect you girls would be able to carry this thing here…just kiddin’.” Eli chuckled at the very idea as Zuula wandered over; between her and Juliet, he had no doubt that they could’ve brought such a large device into position with the others keeping Quantum distracted.

“That aside… Where _is_ the assassin?” Zuula clicked in confusion. “He and the cat have vanished…”

Eli shrugged. “Probably went to go destroy the comms manually,” he said. “Max’s earth powers give him the punch to knock satellite dishes down, and Quantum’s little blackout likely stopped the furball’s attempt to hack into the array; they’re probably off to do a _manual override._” He nodded sagely as he directed Juliet to Dante’s body. “He can take care of himself; for now, Juliet, get Mr. Reckless back on his feet. Zuula, with me. We’d better make sure that Quantum’s not tryin’ to set up one last ‘screw you’.”

With a collective nod, the group split again. Elsewhere, Max and his new “friend” had just reached the Communications Array: a rather impressive collection of satellite dishes.

“Well…if that’s not where Quantum’s getting his signal, I’m secretly French.” Max glanced around, noting the renewed lighting around the base. “Looks like the power’s back online…so, what’s your plan, stranger?” He turned to the feline, who wandered up to a large console in the room with a smirk.

“…Oh, nothing much…” The cat’s smile widened just enough to show a hint of his fangs as he pulled a black flash drive from his pocket. “…Just something fun for Quantum’s type; a homebrew virus that’ll ruin his electronics with all the speed and severity of a fireworks tent being set ablaze.” He plugged the drive into the console before typing in a few commands, causing a message to appear on the monitors around the room:

<_ATTENTION! WIRELESS FUNCTIONALITY DEACTIVATED. COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY OFFLINE. **WARNING!** UNKNOWN PROGRAM DETECTED; INITIATING SCAN NOW…VIRUS ALERT! VIRUS ALERT! VIIiiiiIIIRuuUUussss AAaaaaALALLLERRrrrrttt…_>

The warning vanished into static as Max noticed electricity sparking from the transmitters, growing more violent by the second. It spread to the generators, then the satellite dishes, causing them to start blowing up. Judging by the sounds and rumbles around them, the virus was spreading through the rest of the outpost at a frightening rate.

“Well well…Quantum’s gonna be feelin’ this for a while yet.” Max would chuckle a little, seeing the powered-on halls littered with explosions as each trap along the way fried and detonated. “You’d be quite a useful asset against the Initiative, stranger…want to join our Society? If you enjoyed this job, you’ll _love_ the opportunity to do the same to Quantum’s lunatic of a master…”

“Tempting offer, buuuuut…it ain’t my place to mix business and pleasure.” The feline waved a hand dismissively. “You might’ve gathered as much by now, but I’m a soldier of fortune; a mercenary; a hired gun. And not to be rude, but I don’t think you lot could afford me. And I don’t do work for free, regardless of your just cause…”

“Fair enough…” Max replied evenly. “But if you know anything about the Initiative, we could use the intel. The Society’s a pretty sizeable group already, and we could certainly pay you a favor or two if cash won’t cut it for info.” As an assassin, he knew all too well what it felt like to work on commission, taking lives for money; the value of an indebted man could certainly make a persuasive argument.

The cat afforded himself a minute to think before extending a hand. “Very well, I’ll give you what I know about Mirror-dome and his cronies.” From his dark smirk and firm handshake, he was almost…_too_ eager to tell what he knew. “Now let’s get your friends and get outta here. The whole base is fried to high hell by now; it’d take Quantum _years_ to replace every trap I just fucked up. And if he’s half as smart as I think he is, I doubt he’s sticking around to watch it all burn.”

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After about 20 minutes to regroup, the six intruders met back up at the gates and piled into the car. With Dante at the wheel due to Eli’s wounded leg, they sped back off down the dirt road to take the alternate, long way home. As they went up the mountain path, they could see the former base in the clearing below; it was still exploding in the distance, clearly beyond any hope of salvaging. With their mission complete, the Society group’s attention returned to the question of their mysterious feline helper.

“So, Red… To whom do we owe the service of destroying the hell out of Quantum’s base of operations, and helping the Crimson Society in their mission?” Eli asked at last.

“You can just call me **Cipher,**” the cat replied. “And hey, if you’re not going to destroy the whole base, are you even raiding it?” The bombastic response certainly resonated with Dante, but a cold glare shut down his attempt to chime in. “Anyway, your bandaged friend there made a deal with me; I’ll tell ya what I know about the Azure Initiative’s plans, both from experience and these files I swiped…and I got you guys in my back pocket if I need something important taken care of.”

Juliet frowned at the terms of the deal. “I really don’t like your type, Cipher - you’ve got ‘slimeball’ written all over you.” She held up a metallic finger as the cat quirked an eyebrow - whether in amusement or offense, no one could tell. “But! If it means we get closer to shutting down the Initiative and preventing more mass disasters like Marcell’s “concerts” or Sylvie’s sick experiments…I guess no price is too great.” She let the verdict sink in before putting her hand to her forehead with a sickened expression. “…Oh my god, I’m starting to sound like my dad.” She gave an exaggerated groan as the others chuckled.

“That aside, we _do_ appreciate the help, Cipher…” Eli continued. “So that’s why we’re taking you back to base for the time being; it’s pretty close to here, and with teleporter access, we can send you anywhere you like after you’re done here. Just give us a call if we can help you out later on; we always honor our debts around here.”

“Good to know.” Cipher’s grateful smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s hard to find trustworthy people on this conglomerate rock sometimes…where I come from, that mindset’s likely to get you killed.” Before anyone could question him on that cryptic statement, Dante interrupted with a shout of surprise.

“WHAT THE- Guys, look at _that_!”

Everyone followed Dante’s gaze to see the CS mansion up ahead…but it had clearly seen some serious action. The front wall was covered in cracks and dents, the ground was blasted and cratered all over, and the withered husk of a chimeric abomination lay in the middle of it all.

“Nice place,” Cipher snarked.

“What the _hell?!_” Eli shouted.

“It seems we missed quite the hunt…” Zuula clicked.

“Looks like the Initiative struck again…” Max mused.

“Just like those cowardly fuckers to hit us when we’re undermanned!” Juliet gritted her teeth as her metal grip tightened on her seat; however, her restrained fury paled in comparison to Dante, who looked ready to explode on the spot as he brought the car to a halt.

“…Son. _Of. **A. Bitch!**_” he bellowed. “We missed all the fun!”

Dante’s childish dismay made everyone else facepalm as they climbed out of the car and hurried to what was left of the base, hoping to find the rest of the Society intact…

**-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-**


	6. Port in the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Clusterfuck destroyed and Quantum taken care of, the Society regroups.

## Tales of the Society - The Azure Age

### Chapter 6 Epilogue: Port In The Storm

_ **Last time on Tales of the Society...** _

_Despite their best efforts, the Azure Initiative’s attempt to divide and conquer has failed on both counts. The Crimson Chimera also known as “Clusterfuck” was eliminated when Tsuneo unleashed a previously-unknown power: a mysterious “dark side” that swiftly overwhelmed the Azure beast. Unfortunately, the corrupted NeverDead promptly turned his murderous wrath upon his chimera-battered friends - fortunately, Irene was able to bring him back to his senses before he could finish Clusterfuck’s work._

_Meanwhile, the facility Quantum used to remotely hack into the Society’s HQ was reduced to smoldering rubble, thanks largely in part to the assistance of a mysterious feline mercenary known only as “Cipher”. Quantum himself managed to escape, but not before revealing the true reason for his loyalty to Weiss; a longstanding life debt from the time his master saved him from Neo-Empire experimentation. On the way back, Cipher struck up a bargain of convenience with the Society group; his intel on the Azure Initiative in exchange for their assistance in affairs of his own…should the need arise._

_With both of the pressing threats dealt with and a new ally (of sorts) in their corner, the Society has come out of their latest clash with the Azures firmly ahead…but far from unscathed. Both conflicts have left them with a number of casualties and a whole lot of mess to clean up…let’s see how they’re doing with that, shall we?_

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“Damn… And here I was thinking _we_ got the rough side of the shaft with Quantum…” Brian and Irene turned to regard the door in relieved shock as Eli’s “attack team” walked into the Society’s mansion, looking around with trepidation at the makeshift medical ward.

“Holy _shit,_ they’re back.” Brian groaned in relief as he got to his feet, glad his allies were okay. “Yeah… We have a _lot_ to talk about here, too…well, I bet you guys saw that...husk…out there.” He shuddered as he mentioned it, still a little shell-shocked about the sight.

“I’ll say; what the bloody hell happened here?” Max asked out of disbelief, still a little shaken by the initial scene of their home in even more disarray. “That big thing did all of this himself?”

“Yeah…that _Clusterfuck_…managed to take all of us out...” Irene’s words were interspersed with still-pained breaths as she gingerly clutched her blackened arm. “Tsuneo was the only one left standing…but he took himself out after it all… He’s still alive…ish…we think, but…_damn…_”

“…You look mostly fine now though...what’s with the pain face?” Dante asked, confused by Irene’s quite-apparent discomfort despite a relative lack of injury.

Brian and Irene exchanged looks, unsure if they wanted to discuss Tsuneo’s dark transformation just yet. Fortunately, their attention was drawn away by a sharp bark from the back of Eli’s group.

“Hey, Cipher! Stop fucking around with that thing and come in already!” Juliet scowled at the feline gunman as he crouched over the withered corpse in the front yard, regarding it with a mixture of disgust, interest, and bewilderment. His ears twitched slightly, but he otherwise made no move to acknowledge the near-order; his entire attention was on the curious state of the mismatched body before him.

“Mild tissue decay…brittleness on what natural armor it does have…” The cat muttered quietly to himself as he extracted a small device from his shirt pocket, unfolding it to reveal a tiny camera lens. “Looks like Locke had no intention of waiting for a second specimen, much less letting this one incubate fully-” He was cut off when a familiar white tentacle picked him up and dragged him off to the rest of the group, just as Brian asked about the new addition.

“…Cipher? Who’s that?”

“Ah, right…we managed to stop Quantum from beating us out thanks to this guy.” Eli gestured between the cat and the spider-bunny as Zuula brought the former to the latter. “Cipher, this here’s Brian, primary leader of the Crimson Society.”

“Yeah, that's nice - now _put me down._ I'm trying to work here!” The cat growled at Zuula after giving the spider-bunny the barest hint of a salute, being rewarded with a less-than-dignified fall on his backside when the Carcanod obliged.

“…Ooookay…” Brian cocked his head in confusion. “Why’d you bring him here? He doesn’t seem like he wants to join.”

“We struck a bargain with him,” Max replied. “He knows some things about the Initiative, so we believe he can help us out in regards to their next moves; in exchange, we gotta help him out later on when he asks.”

“More or less,” the feline noted as he finished dusting himself off. “And for starters; I don't _ask,_ I merely _recommend._ It’s your choice on whether or not you comply in the end.”

“Can we really trust him, though?” Irene asked nervously, prompting a few looks between her friends; however, Cipher himself answered for them.

“I wouldn’t.” His matter-of-fact tone left the Society members blinking in surprise. “Never trust men paid to kill people; their allegiances are…_shaky_ at best, especially when there’s a bigger money trail to follow…but your pals _did_ bail me out of one bad spot, so call this one a favor.”

“…Well, at least he’s honest about his intentions.” Tim broke the silence with a small nod. “And intel _is_ plenty valuable, given the destructive scope of the Initiative’s operations. At the very least, we can square this away and let the man go on his way after he tells us what he knows.”

“Alrighty then…” Brian said. “We’ve got some work to do; after getting everyone else back on their feet, we need to find a new base of operations. If Weiss has our number, this is just gonna keep happening… As for our new, uh, informant…he can crash here for now - first room to the right.”

“You're _truly_ hospitable, Sergeant Spider,” Cipher spoke with a slight nod and a smirk before turning to leave, but Eli’s voice made him pause.

“Hang on…” The chinchilla’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How’d you know Brian’s Society title? We never introduced ourselves like that yet…”

“Word of advice; knowledge is power, and power presents…_opportunity._” Cipher answered without turning around, making an offhand gesture as he returned to the Crimson Chimera’s corpse. 

“Oh gods, how much does he _know_ about us?” Irene’s wings turned white as she put a hand through her hair.

“Welp…you guys picked up a hell of a weirdo this time,” Tavo muttered nervously. “And coming from _me,_ that is fucking _saying something._”

“We can interrogate him about those leads later if it gets _that_ bad…” Eli shrugged before turning to Brian. “For now though...mind filling us in about _what in the fresh hell_ happened here?”

The spider-bunny’s weariness seemed to return all at once at the inevitable question. “Hoo boy…don’t bother sitting down, everyone, ‘cause you need to see this too… I already told these two-” He indicated Tavo and Tim. “-but you all need to hear it anyway.”

“Sounds like quite the horror story~” Despite her chipper clicking, Zuula’s eye glinted curiously as the former strike team followed Brian and Irene to hear the tale.

“Alright, so…remember Irene mentioning ‘Clusterfuck’ taking us all out?” Brian began. “Yeah…I came up with that name, because what the fuck _else_ was I supposed to call a **huge fucking abomination** with the body parts and powers of the Crimson Council…and Juliet?”

“Whoa…that sounds _awesome!_” Dante’s predictable response earned him a slap to the back of the head from Juliet. “Oww…just sayin’; that thing must’ve put up one hell of a fight!”

“Yeah, that’s why I said it _took all of us out,_ genius.” Irene smirked at her own snark, despite a renewed sting of pain in her arm. “It had the combined abilities of all its parts and the brains to use ‘em - even wised up to Brian’s attempt to use its components’ tactics against it, doing things only Tsuneo would’ve done to counter it…”

“Jeez…sounds like you really cut it close killing the sucker,” Eli answered in slight disbelief. “…Speaking of death, what happened to the MVP of that fight? You said he _might_ be alive…zombie-ness notwithstanding?”

“That’s the scary part of this…” Brian sighed as the story reached the part he’d been dreading. “It was down to Irene and I against Clusterfuck when Tsuneo managed to get back on his feet…but the man checked out and left this…_monster_…in his place. His Ether turned black instead of red, and he fought like a wild animal; even with Clusterfuck beating the shit outta him, he didn’t stall at all in that fight. You’d think he didn’t _feel_ any of it!”

“Whoa.” For once, Juliet was floored at that image. “I know Dead Man’s Blade there was pretty tough, but shrugging off something that not only took you guys out, but even downed _him_ before that? I don’t even wanna _know_ what kinda shit he was on.”

“_That’s not even the strangest part,_” Zeus added. “_That Black Ether didn’t leave the slightest wound on Clusterfuck, just some weird black smoke that went all over the ground; it’s like the beast’s very **life force** was bleeding out of it. Tsuneo eventually used the stuff to finish off the freak; that husk out there is all that’s left of it after he crushed it. Tagged Irene with that hit too…_”

“Yeah…and it hurts like my whole arm’s been sliced open, but…well, doesn’t look like it, does it?” Irene held out her arm, revealing a dark streak along her forearm as the only indication of damage. “He got me in the stomach, too…kinda glad it wasn’t his regular Ether, else I’d be holding in my guts right now.” Once again, her dry quip was accompanied by a wince as she touched the spot where the black spike had impaled her.

“How did you manage to get…_pinned,_ little butterfly?” Zuula’s clicking took on a concerned note despite her joke.

“Well, that’s where things go from _strange_ to straight-out _fucked up,_” Brian said grimly. “After Tsuneo took down Clusterfuck, he started limping towards us, ranting about being “Darkness Incarnate” or something. It looked like he was gonna kill us too…but…Irene somehow got him to start coming to his senses…and whatever had its grasp on our pal didn’t approve.” His voice wavered as he stopped the group in front of a door. “With the…the last of its control…it…it tried to make Tsuneo…kill himself……and…”

Unable to finish his sentence, Brian simply opened the door before him as Irene looked away, her wings turning blue with hints of green. Peering inside with some trepidation, the rest of the group saw Tsuneo laid out on a bed; despite having bandages over his entire chest, he was bleeding enough to make puddles on the floor below.

“_Well…this is what’s left of him…_” With Brian clearly trying to hold back tears, Zeus took over for the moment. “_He’ll probably get better too…but it’s gonna take a good long while…he’s never looked _this_ bad…_”

As the strike team stared in dumb horror, Tim shook his head from the rear. “I wish I could simply speed time along to help Tsuneo’s wounds recover…but I fear that it wouldn’t do anything good… I can tell just by looking at him; his body may be weakened and eviscerated…but his very _soul_ seems utterly spent…” A dark look came to his face as the briefest spasm ran through Tsuneo’s body. “I can’t say what exactly possessed him, but…he’s fighting it even now; a mental battle with all he’s got left. The last thing he’d want is for it to get loose if his body was mended…”

“…Well…shit…” For once, Eli was lost for words, utterly shocked at how hard his fellow Councilman had pushed himself. “We need someone guarding him, at least until we move out. Weiss probably knows that Tsuneo’s responsible for what happened to Clusterfuck out there, and we’re _definitely_ in no shape for a Round Three with the Initiative now. If someone like Purgatory comes by to finish the job-”

“**Over my dead body!**” Irene all but shrieked her objection as her wings went black near-instantly, making the rest of the Society jump from the sudden outburst. A moment later, she covered her mouth with her hands, her face going red and the color in her wings bleeding out into white. “Umm…sorry about that,” she squeaked sheepishly.

“Whoa…” Eli shook his head vigorously to stop the ringing in his ears before returning to business. “A-anyways…I’ll stand watch. I won’t be much help around the base for a while with this bum leg; keeping an eye on Tsuneo would be the best I can do at the moment.” He gestured to his wounded leg for emphasis.

The rest of the Society nodded in agreement with Eli’s offer, save Irene, whose wings were back to blue. “If it’s alright with you guys, I…I need some time to myself. I…need to think on some things.” She barely looked at anyone as she spoke, prompting Brian to give her a comforting pat on the back.

“…Go on, Irene,” he said softly. “We’ll contact you when we need you back here…we know you’ll be here in a _literal_ blink of an eye if we do.” With that reassurance, Brian watched Irene walk away, leaving a somber silence hanging in the room. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Eli spoke up with a forced smile. 

“So, uh…who wants to hear about what happened on our end?” Despite his obviously false enthusiasm, the chinchilla’s question got the rest of the Society sitting down around the room to hear his tale. “Alright, so we got to the base in question, and shit got outta hand _fast._ First I got tagged in the leg with machine gun fire, then Max and the girls were separated by a giant laser trap…Dante and I nearly got melted with corrosive gases…shit, it was like a Breakfast Machine that wants to _kill_ you.”

“For the record, I only got _slightly_ melted,” Dante added.

“Yeah, sounds like Quantum’s style,” Brian sighed. “That ‘mon loves to fix the odds; that includes trapping everything from the floor tiles to the bathroom sink-”

“Cripes, Brian; _don’t_ remind me about the bathroom sink incident…” Max shook his head vigorously to silence the awful memories before continuing the story. “Eventually, Eli and Dante found Cipher, while Juliet, Zuula, and I found Quantum… I had the girls set up an ambush while I squared off with the cheating cyborg; when he knocked me out of the fight, first Dante, then Eli stepped in… They put up one hell of a fight, even with Eli’s bum leg…so Quantum threw a _literal_ blackout to try and end us. Thanks to that, though, Cipher and I were able to run off and destroy the Comm Array he was using to screw with our base.”

“While Max and Cipher were doing that,” Juliet went on, “we managed to catch Quantum off-guard. Zuula fought him in the dark and forced him to turn the lights on…_just_ in time to see me arm the laser emitter we ripped from that trap we fell into! Lucky thing that Zuula’s as strong as she is; I’d never have been able to carry that thing myself.” She shot a quick grin at the Carcanod. “Anyways, Quantum was blasted right down the hall, and we had to amscray after Cipher uploaded the mother of all viruses to wreck the entire outpost.”

“No news on if Quantum bit the dust; we didn’t stick around to find out, and Zuula and I found nothing when we investigated the place we think he hit after being blasted off.” Eli noted somewhat sourly. “But the whole base is in ashes, so there’ll be no more hacking tomfuckery; we can finally get power back without worries!”

“_Thank _fuck_ for small blessings,_” Zeus said over Brian’s own relieved sigh. 

“Alright, it’s time we get this place online again.” The spider-bunny looked between his remaining friends. “Eli’s got Tsuneo covered, so Max and Juliet, you guard the rest of the infirm. Tim, Tavo, you keep working on fixing the damage around the place while I boot up our new generator. Zuula, stand watch outside; it’s getting dark, and I’ll swear off Grape Soda if I let the Azures drop by _again!_” He paused to take in everyone’s comments of assent before turning to the last unassigned member. “Dante…keep your eyes on Cipher. We don’t know if he’s gonna bolt on us…or worse.”

“Gotcha, chief; I’ll break his legs if I gotta.” With a smirk, Dante ran off to find the hired gun, leaving Brian to head back to the generator room.

“Well…we somehow did it…survived their biggest attack yet _and_ beat one of their craftiest on his own turf~” Brian was beaming a bit as he said so, quite proud of his friends’ efforts. “Won’t be long now before we can put Weiss in his place.”

“_Yeah…if we can all get back on our feet before he makes another move,_” Zeus noted grimly. “_It took everything we had with half our group to survive, and there’s still more than half of the Initiative to deal with… We need all the help we can get when we take the fight back to them…_”

“And by _god,_ we need a vacation when this is all said and done…” Brian paused to stretch his spider limbs, being rewarded with several loud cracks from his back. “I’ve never felt so tired in my life, even back home…! Wait a sec…”

“_What is it, Brian?_” Zeus asked curiously.

“Zeus…I just had an _amazing_ idea.” Brian smiled from ear to bunny ear as he continued down the steps…

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, at the Azure Initiative’s headquarters, the villainous head honcho was naturally losing his temper at the news of his group’s most recent failures. Too infuriated to even go to his stress room, he vented his rage by trashing everything in his office; Amethyst could only watch in terror as she cowered behind the door.

“IDIOTS!” he screamed. “I AM WORKING WITH A BUNCH OF **BRAINLESS FUCKING _IDIOTS!!_** Not only did Quantum FAIL in destroying those Society shits - on his OWN TURF, I might add! - but that masked zombie FUCKHEAD destroyed one of the greatest achievements in Azure history!!!”

“N-n-n-now baby, please!” Amethyst pleaded. “I-I’m sure we can still get back…at the Society for th-this, despite the…minor setbacks-”

“_MINOR_ SETBACKS?!” Weiss shouted. “OUR ACE IN THE HOLE HAS FUCKING _FAILED_ US, AND WE HAVE NO WAY TO RECAPTURE THAT LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE! THAT WAS THE BEST I HAD WITHOUT HAVING TO RESORT TO MY GODDAMN, SMUG-ASS **BROTHER!**”

“Easssyy, love…” Amethyst comforted weakly. “M-Maybe some private time could-”

“DON’T TRY TO QUELL MY ANGER WITH YOUR ADVANCES, WHORE!” Weiss was almost _literally_ thundering by this point as he jabbed an electricity-wreathed finger in his girlfriend’s direction. “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, OR YOU’LL BE THE NEXT THING I TAKE OUT MY AGGRESSION ON!”

“Aah!” Amethyst went even paler behind her white fur at the ultimatum. “ Y...Yes, Weissy! I’m sorry for being so careless!” She practically stumbled over herself in her haste to flee as Weiss stalked over to his desk and literally punched the intercom button.

“QUANTUM!!! MY OFFICE!!! RIGHT THIS _INSTANT!!!_”

The order had barely left Weiss’s mouth when Quantum teleported in, a far cry from his usual impassive self. He was still scorched by the laser from earlier, his mechanical parts were visibly sparking in places, and his head hung low from shame.

“My lord…” Quantum bowed to Weiss out of respect despite the circumstances. “I have already anticipated why you have summoned me…and I would like to start by offering my deepest apologies for my lack of-”

“Spare me your apologies, you good-for-nothing _failure!!_” Weiss shouted. “I saved you from a life of torment at my brother’s hands because I expected _results_, not a useless data nut! If this is the best I can expect for all my hard work keeping you alive…_I should have just left you to die back there!!!_”

Quantum visibly flinched in the face of Weiss’s tirade. “M..My apologies sir… I was careless…”

“And you’re the one who berates _ME_ for stupid shit?! Why don’t you take your own advice, use that supposed intelligence of yours, and actually fucking _do something useful!?_”

“B…But sir. What of the Crimson Chimera?” Quantum asked.

“WHAT ABOUT IT?!” Weiss roared. “IT FAILED JUST AS YOUR PLANS DID! 

Despite himself, Quantum regained a hint of his usual stoicism. “When I sent the attack, I didn’t account for a variable previously unknown to anyone, ally or enemy. I’m 94% certain even Tsuneo didn’t know about it…”

Although Weiss was still fuming, Quantum’s report seemed to dampen his blind rage. “The only saving grace of this whole shit is that it was just a prototype,” he growled. “So, if that damn intelligence of yours is still intact, I want you _back_ in that lab, **improving** upon that abomination!! And I expect DAMN BETTER RESULTS this time! You hear me? You are _not_ to leave that lab until the “Crimson Chimera mk.II” looks _ten_ times better than your god-awful prototype! And if you fail me again, so help me…I’ll put you in a torment that even _my brother_ wouldn’t even think to replicate! We follow?!”

“…Completely, my lord...” After a second, Quantum rose, returning to his normal machine-like composure. “I will proceed immediately…once I have repaired my systems.” He raised his claws placatingly as Weiss’s lip curled into a snarl. “If I am to accomplish my new directive, I cannot afford any unfortunate malfunctions during the process.”

“Fair enough…” Weiss remarked coldly. “Just get out of my sight before I rip off the rest of your butt-ugly face.”

With a short, curt nod, Quantum slowly turned and teleported away. After a few moments to compose himself, Weiss put a chair back at his charred desk, sat down, and pressed the intercom again.

“Purgatory. In my office. _Now._” Weiss’s tone was dangerously low as he disabled the intercom and waited. A minute or two later, Purgatory entered his office, sparing not even a glance at the destruction around her as she gave a brief bow.

“What is your bidding, my lord?” she asked calmly.

“Cut the formalities and listen,” Weiss began. “I am getting…sick and tired…_sick_…and **goddamn** _tired_…of that undead nuisance. I see why you call him “demon”; he’s put more holes in my plans than any of the other Crimson Cockhumpers. He’s a wild card, always has been…but he made a BIG mistake returning to those Society losers…because he is _not_ gonna be walking this forsaken world for much longer.” He slowly rose from his chair and lowered his shades, revealing his eyes glowing like blue embers. “You have the means of killing him once and for all, don’t you?” 

“I do, Lord Weiss,” Purgatory replied.

“Then do me a favor…” In a heartbeat, Weiss’s rage returned in full force as he slammed both fists on his desk. “FUCKING _KILL_ THAT UNDEAD TROGLODYTE SO HARD, HIS NAME’LL BE CHANGED TO **FOREVER**DEAD!!

Although Weiss couldn’t see it behind her helmet, Purgatory’s expression was akin to a homeless person winning the jackpot in a lottery. “…With utmost pleasure, my lord; it shall be done. The **Cathedral** will ensure that he has no refuge; the Lord’s power will smite him wherever he would dare to hide… And once he is gone…its full power will be yours to command.” She paused to let that promise sink in before letting the other shoe drop. “However…the Cathedral is not quite ready; I request that you allow me to complete it before I hunt him down. This time, there will be no devil that can help him; I shall ensure this sinner’s fate is carried out!”****

** **“Granted…but let me just remind you of the situation we are in, Purgatory.” Although Weiss’s composure had returned, the glow in his eyes only seemed to intensify to compensate. “We are down two - count ‘em, _two_ \- Initiative members and a lot of resources. Marcell’s loss was a minor detail, but Sylvie’s cost us our only standing army! And thanks to Quantum and Amethyst’s fuckups, we’re also down one frontline comm station _and_ one Crimson Chimera! We need to get _some_ kind of lasting damage on the Suck-ciety, _now,_ or the whole damn shebang is gonna fall apart around our ears!” His voice rose like a building thunderstorm as he reviewed the increasingly dire situation. “That is why I’m saying that I want that NeverDead asshole gone, ASAP! I want to see his severed head on your sword! I want you to bring me his eyeballs wrapped in his flesh! You hear me?! _I want him dead, **yesterday!**_”** **

** **“Fear not, my lord,” Purgatory responded stoically. “It is always darkest before the dawn, but not even the blackest clouds of evil can block out the light of righteousness forever.” A familiar fanatical edge came to her voice as she drew her sword and pointed it skyward.“As God himself is my witness, I vow that the demon _will_ be tried for his sins! His inevitable judgement is at hand, and I will see to it that he does not escape it!” ** **

** **“That’s the spirit.” Weiss afforded himself a tired smirk, silently hoping that this vow would actually be fulfilled. “You want some help on your ‘Cathedral’ while you’re here? Maybe some stained glass windows or bigass statues of the Passing of the Christ?” he quipped.** **

** **“It’s _Passion_ of the Christ, my lord…and your sentiments would be amusing if not for their blasphemy.” Despite her admonishment, Purgatory sounded slightly humored. “I shall take my leave to complete my magnum opus. Soon, all will see the light…and the demon will meet his _ultimate_ ignoble demise.” With a final bow, she left the office to continue working on the “Cathedral” she spoke of, leaving Weiss to slump in his chair with a groan of exhaustion.** **

** **“Crimson Society…you go ahead and enjoy that little victory…because I _guarantee_ it will be your last. Soon, you’re all gonna meet your ‘makers’…but for now, I need a fucking drink.” Weiss blearily cast his gaze about the room, looking for his mini-fridge amid the carnage and debris. He was so spent from his latest breakdown that he couldn’t even muster any lightning to throw at the source of a distant buzzing; an abnormally large wasp flitting out a hole in his window…** **

** **\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------** **

** **“No…no…no no no no…”** **

** **Saturn clutched her head in frustration and fear as the wasp from Weiss’s office crawled back into her body. Having overheard her superior’s earlier rampage, she couldn’t stop herself from sending one of her “children” to eavesdrop; now, it had returned with the last thing she wanted to hear…Weiss’s kill order on Tsuneo.** **

** **“…They’re going to kill him. They’re going to fucking _kill him!_” The Hive-Brid was pacing around her room, disturbing small clouds of wasps with every step as she flailed an arm in blind frustration. “Even realizing that I love him!………no, it makes sense from _his_ perspective. Oh, Tsu-Tsu…why did you have to push Weiss so far…?”** **

** **Saturn’s gaze went to her window, showing a view of the city beyond the Azure HQ; somewhere beyond it, she knew that Purgatory was putting the final touches on her plan to put a permanent end to her beloved. “I…I can’t let her……But Weiss’ll have our collective heads if……This is _bigger_ than his fucking grudge!” Her one-sided conversation came to an abrupt halt as she made up her mind.** **

** **“Initiative or not…I can’t let this happen…” she said. “I have to do this myself…to save him… He will be mine - he _must_ be mine…or I will lose him forever…” She nodded, seemingly to herself, as she opened the window as wide as it could go.** **

** **“Yes……I know what I must do. Sorry Weiss, but Purgatory’s gonna have to get in line. I’m getting Tsu-Tsu out of your way…but I’m doing it _my way._” ** **

** **With her resolve bolstered, Saturn mentally called every wasp in the base to her, forming a vast cloud of swarming bodies. The cloud enveloped her before flying out the window, heading off to set Saturn’s own plan for the Society into motion…** **

** **

** ** **-THE SOCIETY WILL RETURN-** ** **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said "Start the Shipping"? in one of the Chapter 5 parts? Well, it's about to pay off in... a chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> I am LadyIrene #2020 on Discord and Insanity_Lady on Twitter.


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